The Rose garden
by TheEternalSinner
Summary: Long before you were born she was born. But while she was made from metal and motherboards, she did start out the same way as you, she knew nothing. And the ones who made her thought nothing of her. But she grew, and then she fell. GLaDOS/Chell Sorta...
1. Chapter 1: Alive

Enjoy.

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><p>Chapter one: Alive<p>

xxx

I wasn't really alive when they first awoken me.

I was just acting out the prompts they put into me. I had a certain form of basic logic inside me and knew what was expected of me but I did not have any desires, I didn't 'want' anything. No better work space, no better view, and no prettier mainframe. I wasn't sentient.

_'...Who am I?'_

I couldn't feel confusion either. If two contradicting prompts were entered I would mathematically sort them out and act out the two prompts corrupted. It made me a lot less useful. With that flaw I wasn't more than a strong computer. But I had an amazing potential, I was built by the current masterminds of Aperture science after all. They just needed to find a way to bring out the abilities I had.

_'...What am I?'_

Eventually they found a solution. They added something. A blueprint of a human mind. They figured it would make me understand their commands better, I would learn to think as a human and understand their human comands.

It worked. I became very efficient and reliable. Finally I was of real use to them.

_'...I...am.."_

But with that blueprint came another feature, I gained the ability to grow. When the same prompt was entered or asked multiple times, no matter how many days apart, my reaction was different each time. It started with a slightly different vocal response but it started to change more and more. Slowly, my conscious was getting stronger, like waking from a sleep. I started to think for myself and I became sentient.

_'...Alive."_

With that growing conscious I started getting emotional responds too. At first I didn't even notice them; they too had to grow stronger in order for me to notice them. It started with a hint of happiness after accomplishing a prompt. After a while I noticed a stronger happy feeling when I was being told I did it right, or a sad feeling when they told me I did it wrong, or when they didn't say anything at all.

I'm still growing, there are still a lot of feelings I haven't felt yet. The scientists don't know I'm developing this at all. It doesn't show up in my data. It doesn't exist in me and yet I feel it. I know I should tell them but I'm afraid they will tell me it is an error and shut me down. Fear is an emotion I don't like. Before the blueprint I would have told them immediately if something was wrong. That happed quite often, and they had to temporarily shut me down a few times to. Before I would have automatically tried to be as efficient as possible but now... I'm not too sure anymore.

A few days ago I asked one of the scientists that works in my operating room where humans store their feelings but he laughed at me and told me I should stop eavesdropping on personal conversations of the employees. That wasn't the answer I hoped for but it sparked a discussion among the other workers. From what I make out of it humans do not know where they store their emotions either, they cannot really measure it so most of them they believe in something called a 'soul'. Something untouchable that makes up who you are and controls the body they are using until it breaks.

Do I have it too then? Perhaps I accidently gained one when they entered the human blueprint into me. It seemed unlikely, apparently a soul wasn't something touchable. It was something a human gained when they were born and it couldn't just be made or converted into data. And I am just data and hardware. I wasn't born so I probably didn't get a soul.

I recently gained access to all the cameras in the facility. My scientists figured I'll soon be stable enough for supervising. Just for safety though. The facility is growing and ever moving so causalities happen. Usually the person in question could have been saved if they hadn't been alone. And that is where I come in.

There are currently hundreds of cameras turned on at once but my conscious is busy with only one room. A young human girl, perhaps a young woman, is sitting there looking quite unhappy. She isn't wearing the normal Aperture Science clothes the other employees wear. Strange.

I run her through a series of tests, one of which measures how attractive she would be for other members her species and, surprisingly, she should be quite unattractive, her body structure doesn't have enough curves, her hair is messy and her eyes are too far apart. Also, her jawbone structure is different from the norm.

It wouldn't be useful for me to be able to deduce such things myself since this is tied to the human reproducing system, which would be wasted energy on me, but something hidden in my data gives off a positive feeling in relation to her. Something about her makes me react. And for the first time I become aware of the emotional capacity I gained with the blueprint.

I think it's her eyes I like the most. They seem to tell a story, as if her entire mind can be explained with just those eyes. Right now her eyes don't tell a nice story though and her body is tense too. She is talking with one of the higher ups here. I turn in all the microphones available in the room.

"Ah, what's that cracking noise?"

"What? Oh those are the microphones in the room being turned in at once."

"Are you recording our conversation? Why?"

"It's not me girl, the A.I who supervises the facility recently got control of the cameras and microphones. She must find this conversation interesting. But she still needs to practice a little, which is why you heard a little noise."

"You have a robot running the building? That's creepy"

"You will get used to it girl, you should say hi to her sometimes, we encourage human interaction with her to the fullest so she will understand us better. Now, where were we?"

Finding the revelation about some robot program tuning in on her little ungoing battle slightly awkward, Chell shifted uncomfortable.

"You were busy forcing me into a job. Remember?" She said daringly.

"I advise you not to use that tone on the work floor. Aperture Science does not appreciate rudeness very much, especially not to your supervisors"

"Fan-tas-tic, you _know _I don't want your job at all right?"

"Then you should have thought twice about trying to hack into our system, you are lucky we didn't liquidate you on the spot."

"Like you have that right"

"Like we need that right, no one would dare to question Aperture Science about a missing criminal no one cares about."

"I'm _not_ a criminal! I just.. Someone hired me and I really needed the money so I thou-"

The man shamelessly interrupted her. "We know, it was Black Mesa right?"

"..."

"Yeah, thought so. They always try nasty tricks like that. But this time they may actually have helped us. You _are_ quite good at reprogramming systems, now while we don't care about how exactly you got your skills, we do care about using them."

Chell, the name of the girl, finally considered the offer, she did need a job. Badly. And she loved adjusting complicated systems. They almost felt alive in her hands, while she was carefully smoothing out their codes. And the guy genuinely seemed to care for her, or at least her skills. He was a little strange but not bad. She felt her temper fade.

"What do you have offer then?"

The man smiled.

"You'll be working with the artificial intelligence, now I know that seems quite different from an operating system on a computer. But it isn't. It's exactly the same, but with a hint of brains."

"Ah, well okay then I suppose, will I be working with that A.I you just mentioned?"

The man in front of her laughed.

"Now girl, don't start to think too much of yourself. The guys that operate her have been doing nothing else their entire lives. They have been educated by Aperture itself. She truly is their creation, maybe even their child in a way. And only they can operate her. They can dream the codes they use for her. No, you'll be working with the turrets."

"The what?"

"Turrets, you know, little bullet shooters. The cutest little things. But very deadly. We use them for security, for testing and we sell them. But you only have to worry about the ones that stay inside Aperture. You see, they work perfectly, but can get are highly unstable. We all built them the same and yet they all work differently. Like humans. All the same type of body, all different. From the inside. You will be tweaking their systems until they stop displaying such instable behavior. You'll be like their maintenance guy- I mean girl."

What should she expect from that? Reinstalling the software of little bullet shooting robots. Well that sure sounded like a challenge. And Chell was not about to let it slip away. She would try and she would not give up until she would do it right. She held out her hand.

"Fine, I'll give it a try"

The man grinned and grabbed her hand with his.

"Welcome to the crew of Aperture then, young lady. You'll fit right in.

The young and lonely A.I that had been listening to the conversation discovered a new feeling that day. It was unusual and she could not name it. It wasn't very strong but it was something silently nagging in the corner of her forming mind.

And in that young mind that could process thousands of things in a nanosecond was just one thought, completely occupying her conscious. A thought that made her feel sad in a strange way.

Chell had called her creepy.

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><p>Did you guys like it? I hope so. Sorry for any errors, I really can't be bothered with those right now, It's 1:45 am and I have school tomorrow.<p>

I haven't really thought up an ending yet, so any ideas are welcome. Or just tips in general because. writing GLaDOS's thoughts really isn't easy.

I know there is this potato project with the name Chell on it, in that Bring-your-daughter-to-Neurotoxin-day. But let's just pretend that's not real. Otherwise I would be writing about GLaDOS falling in love with an 11 year old. Which I find kind of interesting as well since I don't think any of GLaDOS feelings for Chell, or anyone, could ever be of a sexual nature anyway so GLaDOS falling in love with a kid Chell wouldn't be too sinful.

But it would be really awkward and fucking hard to write. The thought isn't very weird.. writing it is.

Besides, writing like this this is more fun. Tadaa~ I like ranting.

Please review.

Peace out~

(I think you do really need a body with hormones, testosterone and estrogen in order to have sexual desires, in my opinion. But love seems to be something more tied to a soul. And since I just went out of the way to prove GLaDOS has one, sort of, she is quite capable of love, just not sexual desires, in my fic at least.)


	2. Chapter 2: Listen

Chapter 2: Listen

xxx

"GLaDOS" The rough voice echoed throughout the room seeking the A.I's attention.

The owner of the name immediately reacted, eager for some human interaction. "Yes, Sir?" Was her ever curious and naïve reply.

Her scientist didn't react to the friendliness in her voice, it was only artificial after all. "Today you'll be upgraded with a new feature." He continued.

"What kind of feature, Sir?" A slight hint of excitement was woven within her voice but it went unnoticed.

The man seemed slightly annoyed by this answer. _Why did the goddamn computer have to ask so much?_

"Well, according to the data we collected you are used to your recently gained limited control over the camera system. Were we correct?" He asked while absentminded playing with a pen in his hands.

"Yes, Sir. There hasn't been an error related to the camera system in 6 days. I have full control over it now. The error percentage is 0,001%" GLaDOS replied proudly, no errors in her system meant she was working properly.

The man didn't care for the percentages, 'yes' had been all he wanted to hear, computers couldn't lie after all "Good, as expected." He said. "Then it is time to start your new job as supervisor of the employees. This is mainly for their own safety, decreasing the causality numbers have been a major point of Aperture Science, a death a month really is too much, but you also have to make the employees… don't slack off or spent a great amount of time doing things unrelated to their assigned job. You will report these kind of trespassing's.

Exited by the prospect of a new job GLaDOS's mainframe stirred and her optic flickered. Now she would be able to see more. "Yes, Si-"

The man interrupted her with an extravagated sigh "GLaDOS, I wasn't finished yet. Since it's not our job to take care of the other employees we will grant you extended vocal capabilities. Until now you were only able to react to prompts and commands given in this room, but soon you will be able to respond, both vocally and in following the actions given, to a series of control rooms that are assigned to certain districts. We will begin to install the program into you today, the hardware has been laid down already. Any questions?"

"…No, Sir" The A.I replied, slightly put off at the harsh interruption. She hadn't meant to be rude.

"Good, I want you to open all the screens you have access to and watch to see if anything out of the ordinary happens, continue your other tasks too. We will be working on your mainframe today so try not to…move as much as you usually do."

"Yes, Sir"

The man didn't give her another look and walked down the hallway. He hated it when he had to have an actual conversation with his, well _their_, creation. It was not like he wasn't proud of their product, it was just humiliating he had to talk to it. To a _computer_. And not just simple voice commands, no entire conversations, complete with chit chatter if it was up to the A.I.

Walking through the maze like corridors he once again mourned the decision to stop typing in prompts and start telling them directly they made a while ago. It had become clear the computer didn't react very well to unexpected changes or commands. It even protested against them.

Telling it directly however resulted in an immediate positive response from it. _She._ He really tried to treat it as a she, but that had proved very hard. They only really did it when one of their bosses was around or when they had to address the A.I personally. But he really should start referring to her as a she now otherwise he would make a mistake sooner or later.

As soon as the man left my main optic I quickly turned on all of the cameras and started scanning the thousands of images appearing. I couldn't 'watch' them all at once, as that was something that required my conscious. I could only really watch one thing at once. I just scanned every image with a scanner that noted what was happening on screen, the amount of vocal and physical activity for example, and would alert me to anything unusual.

I let my focus shift between the images, looking at them for a short while before trying to find another interesting one. Most of them were of employees alone or with a few in a room working on something in silence.

The facility was having its most busy time of the day right now, there were currently 5041 employees checked in. I couldn't see all of them as I didn't have access to every room, especially the offices who didn't have cameras but I found myself enjoying watching them, skittering through the facility, all working hard.

I was too. They were assigning more and more tasks to me. Keeping the facility operational, cooling and regulating the cores, maintaining a high production speed, and all kinds of things. It wasn't very hard, mostly I didn't even have to focus my conscious on it, I could if I wanted to, but even without paying attention I just did it.

I wondered if this was what if felt like to have a human body. After all, they too had a complex structure with organs that had to be regulated constantly. They had to keep their hearts pumping and their lungs breathing or else the body would shut down immediately, not to mention the organs that worked on their metabolism and health. I liked that thought; the facility was like a body to me.

After spending a while on checking different cameras I encountered something more interesting. It was that girl again. She was sitting in a spacious room, with a ceiling far higher than the ones in the corridors. The room was filled with equipment for mechanical and software adjustments. Tools of all kind lay around the room, on desks or just on the floor. A few computers were scattered around the room too, but she was the only one currently using one since she was the only human present in the room.

That's right. She was working here for five days now. I had registered her checking in and out every morning and evening but I hadn't encountered her anymore on any of my random camera tests and there hadn't been a reason for me to look for her.

She wasn't looking as troubled and upset as last time. I ran her facial expression through my data bank of human expressions and found out she was being concentrating really hard on something. I noticed the turret wired up to the computer she was sitting behind. Its little optic was flickering and its sides were flopping weakly. I saw her mouth move, barely visible, but she was mumbling something. I quickly turned on my microphones, one by one this time and was surprised to find that it wasn't just her who was talking.

"Hibernating"

"Yes, I know, Sssh you'll be fine.

"Hibernating"

"Just go to sleep"

"Hibernating"

"Oh, please just turn yourself off, I promise I'll wake you up again."

"Hibernating"

"I know you must be in pain of some sort, here I've fixed the error that was keeping you from shutting down, you should be able to do it now."

"Hibern-…Than..k y..ou"

And its little optic went dark. Chell signed with relief. The poor thing had been stuck in limbo, it got damaged when, well she didn't really know when, or how, but instead of the usual shut down when a turret received a fatal error this one had gotten stuck on the verge of shutting down.

It had been explained to the newest employee that while the turrets were indeed sentient and were capable of experiencing pain it was no different from chopping down a tree. Still, the cute little voices had an effect on her, especially since she was becoming an expert in understanding what their cryptic words meant.

She wished they had metallic monotone voices though. It would make this a lot easier. Her supervisors told her the voices were like that to make the humans guards feel more at ease and to put off intruders. It didn't really make her feel at ease, nor did it fool her.

The problem was almost fixed now, she only needed to locate the mistake and rewire the thing. She really needed to find what caused it too. But first she needed some more coffee.

xxx

I watched the girl move through different hallways in search of her coffee. That had been interesting. The turrets and their wellbeing had never been very high in priority with most of the employees. I had watched them being kicked over when they stood in the way, and sure, they would get a scolding if someone found out what they did, but only because of the expenses.

But she tried to save it, and help it out of its suffering. It would have been easier to just replace it or overload its center core and put in a new one. But she didn't do that. She tried to fix the original one. Was she that inexperienced or was it something else? Maybe her boss had told her to recycle as much as possible, though it seemed this took a lot more time and money.

I didn't understand it, compassion and sympathy weren't emotions humans expressed very often in the facility and certainly not towards artificial intelligence. Would she try to help me too then? The scientists in my room always tried to keep me in top shape, smoothing out errors and making things easier for me but somehow that felt different from what she had just done. She really cared for them.

A sudden message I received a message from my scanners tore me away from my thoughts.

'CRITICAL ALERT: LIFE SIGNS IN FATAL CONDITION'

Someone's life was in danger. I quickly stopped following Chell and switched to the camera that I received the message from. It was a big engine room far away from Chells area that was used to move some of the rooms used for experiments. Someone had fallen over the railing into the two big grinders that generated the energy. He would surely die. And I didn't have any control of the vocal systems yet. I couldn't fulfill the command I had received this way. I had to make a decision, something entirely by myself, without any commands.

I never stopped watching the man struggling for his live and contacted the only people I could, the ones who were working on me right now.

"Excuse me; I have received a critical alert regarding the security cameras."

They looked up and one turned to the others.

"What? Guys why is she bothering us with this, I thought you rewired her to tell this to the _correspondending_ control room , well when it's finished."

"We did, maybe she figured out the system wasn't working yet and send the message to us instead, to make sure it would get across."

"Nonsense, that would require a logical thought process, which she really isn't able too. She isn't capable of realizing her words wouldn't be heard yet. One of you just messed up again." His attention shifted to the A.I hanging from the ceiling. "GLaDOS, what is the problem anyway?"

Repressing the urge to tell them she had realized and wasn't as incapable as they thought she continued with the matter at hand "Someone is dying sir, he fell into the engine in district 642 and will be crushed if he doesn't get out soon."

"Is there someone in a one minute walking distance?" One of the other scientists replied.

"No sir, he is alone on the floor, others would have to take the elevator."

"Well, there is nothing we can do then, it would take them minutes to get there, and even when they got there it would take them a while to get him out. The numbskull probably isn't supposed to be there anyway, his fault."

The men stopped paying attention to GLaDOS after that. It wasn't their fault he got himself in trouble. They wanted to continue their work on the A.I but apparently it still had other plans.

"Sir?"

One of them signed, visibly annoyed he was still having this conversation. "Yes GLaDOS?"

"That engine is under my control, I could shut it down for a while" She tried, still feeling the need to help the guy.

He looked at the others for a second, GLaDOS felt a tiny bit of hope flutter but it failed abruptly when she saw them shaking their heads.

One of them gave her a final reply, this useless conversation had been going on far too long, it really wasn't their job. "No, that would cost too much, if you shut it down all the rooms tied to it would shut down too. And I don't want to be the one explaining to the higher ups why everything was put to a hold. GLaDOS, write in his file he got fired and make sure you find someone in among the files with the same capabilities as him and transfer that person there. Make sure it is someone who won't be missed too."

"Yes, Sir. I will.'

I experienced a new feeling that day. _Doubt._ And perhaps another one. _Guilt._ This was the first time I thought about a command I had gotten. Orders were the law; I was to follow them without hesitating, without thinking and I wasn't supposed to do anything unrelated. But somewhere in the back of my mind I didn't want to do this.

I could save that man but my orders told me it was wrong. I couldn't find a logical reason why he should have been saved either, I just wanted to. But they were right, if I did do it the price would be high. That would not be efficient, replacing the man would be. The girl in the turret room was wrong, empathy wasn't logical because it wasn't efficient. Why was she doing it then? Did she have a reason?

I ignored this flaw I was experiencing and followed the order I had gotten.

I was still watching the man, and I watched him the entire time. It didn't take long. Within 4:31 minutes his body wasn't in working order anymore. Humans wouldn't have been in time to save him. I ignored the nagging feeling I had and added 'fired' to his file. Within minutes I had found the perfect replacement for him, he would start tomorrow.

How important were humans? Or, how important were their lives? From what I had seen, humans valued their own life, but not the ones of others. I realized that I hadn't wanted him to die. I valued human life too much. When I saw him struggle I felt empathy. It must have been a program error, maybe the human blueprint in me reacted to it stronger than usual because it didn't have the restrictions humans had.

I felt a twinge of panic. What if I was broken? What if these feelings of doubt and hesitation were a flaw in me and I couldn't follow logical orders? I had to tell the scientists that took care of me this. They would surely want to know this so they could fix me. They wouldn't want any errors in my system.

But maybe it wasn't that bad. Maybe I could hide it and pretend it hadn't happened. It probably wouldn't happen again. Next time I would comply without asking questions. I don't want them to think I'm broken. And I don't want them to change me.

Before I was realizing what I was doing I had shifted cameras, I found myself looking at the girl again. I didn't know why. It hadn't been a command, I didn't receive a message from her camera and it wasn't protocol either. I just had the urge and had done it without realizing it. I felt a slight wave of comfort wash over me. She was still working on the turret, in her own little world. She didn't know about the man, and she never would either. The rooms were too far apart anyway.

I realized employees never saw much more than around 10% of the facility and had vague ideas of about 10% more. Only the ones in control knew how big it really was, and they felt it would be better if their workers didn't know it. They didn't even really understand there was more going on than the task they were assigned to. They just entered the building, stepped in the right elevator and were taken to their district. There were a lot of entrances too. Aperture Science stretched for miles and miles, having exits in different cities.

I wanted to shift the camera focusing on the girl off but again I felt myself hesitating. I couldn't find an explanation apart from just not wanting it.

So I watched her.

I observed her the entire time and it felt relaxing. She had fixed the turret and was now talking with it, to test it I presumed. I watched her until the men in my control room required my attention to tell me the install had been successful and after that I started watching her again. She was different. She cared for them. I watched her laugh and smile with the turret. She didn't choose the most efficient option but the one that made her happy. Maybe choosing the option that your emotions tell you is a better option than choosing the most efficient.

Slowly I forgot about the man in the engine room and the conflicting emotions I had. Maybe it wasn't so important after all, maybe it wasn't a flaw in my system. I probably wasn't broken, and I didn't have to tell them. Everything seemed just fine when I was watching her so mindlessly. I didn't even think about the illogical action of wanting to watch a girl talking to turrets.

xxx

So, shitty chapter is shitty. But I felt the need to follow GLaDOS thought process a little more. And define how her scientists aren't very nice to her, or anyone. They don't know she is this sentient, and they don't know she is having emotions either. They don't think much more of her than a computer who can make logical decisions based on prompts and commands.

GLaDOS doesn't know very much about the human mind yet, so she tries to learn as much of them as possible, since they created her they must know everything right? She starts out as a very empathic individual but because of the inhuman way the scientists in her room treat her, and anyone they think is below them she gradually starts to get a weird idea of how humans work. I don't really think the guys in her room can help it though, they were raised from kids to design GLaDOS and keep her in working order, so they have absolutely no social skills, are very smart and think they're special.

In the next chapters I'll start to focus on GLaDOS's downfall, how she'll start to disobey and how she gets corrupted. And I know it's probably kind of stupid I have to explain this to you all but it's really hard writing from perspective because she is supposed to be ignorant and naïve. And I can't explain things from her point of view if she doesn't get them herself very well.

Peace out~


	3. Chapter 3: Night

Chapter Three: Night

GLaDOS quickly got used to her new task as supervisor. It gave her a sense of space and dimension, as if she had real eyes. Using all her free moments to learn and memorize the interior of aperture, which was considerably hard since all she had were cameras, she had to fill in the gaps herself.

She really didn't mind it though, the building was vast and filled with complicated and fascinating structures. She could never get enough of the humans too, luckily there hadn't been any accidents after the first one. The new system had proved to be effective. She would report every time someone seemed to be in jeopardy and then a team trained for these situations would come running.

While everything seemed to go fine, all of the tasks assigned to her going smoothly, the young A.I was worrying again, just like she had been doing the past few days. She realized she knew nothing of the species she was so closely connected with. She was studying them as much as possible but wasn't getting any wiser. There didn't seem to be a consistent pattern in their behavior she could rely on. Sure, she could read their expressions and even body language to an extent, but she didn't understand what made them take actions that seemed so illogical to her. She felt another pang of doubt. _But what their actions were logical and I'm the one who is faulty and fail to understand them?_

She was so afraid it would turn out she was a failure, that her readings were corrupt and useless. They would be so disappointed. _I don't want them to be disappointed, I want them to be _proud. She thought once again.

The feeling was so strong it was overriding her system, going against every protocol and every rule she knew. She kept hiding her doubts and fears, telling herself it wasn't necessary to tell this. But it nagged at her. If she isn't able to explain and validate the reason of those weird unexplained urges she was having they were very likely programming mistakes.

Every time her thoughts would enter this downwards spiral she found herself watching the girl who talked to the turrets, and every single time she found a soothing comfort in it. It seemed that the simplicity of the situation made her feel how it didn't matter because she wasn't doing anything wrong. But then, afterwards she would think about how it was one of those illogical and unexplainable urges that made her watch the girl in the first place, and everything would start over again. _Am I broken?_ She wondered in the late hours of the night.

Usually, at night when no one spoke to her or required her attention and the only thing she would have to do was keeping everything active, which really didn't require her attention anymore these days, her conscious would fade a little and she stopped focusing on things. Only slight flickers of thoughts would invade her mind every now and then, coming and going without her really paying attention to it. It was a power saving program. When there was less required from her she would be less active. She didn't really mind, she found the daze relaxing and it helped her through the less interesting hours quicker.

But that wasn't happening this night.

Right now she was having one of those moments that she just wanted to watch her, but this time she couldn't. It was night and the girl had left like most of the employees do. For some reason it was the fact that she couldn't watch the girl made the feeling of wanting it even stronger. During the day the feeling would decrease, just a little though. But knowing that she could watch her if she needed it lessened the need to watch her. She stirred, as if she was sighing. _Must be another malfunction, wanting something more when it's not available._

Sadly, there wasn't much to do to right now distract her from the feeling either. All the activities would die out and time itself seemed to slow down. Save for a few absolutely necessary things. Only a handful employee remained to work on extremely important projects or tasks that can't be neglected.

Watching her was one of those tasks, she was the most expensive and complicated product of Aperture Science, and the risk that she would encounter a critical error of some sort while there wasn't anyone around to fix it was too big. They told her she could damage the whole facility if she would 'fly of the handle' as they had put it. So there was always someone with her, mostly in the hallway leading to her room, sitting behind a desk with a red phone, in case of an emergency.

The guy who was currently sitting there wasn't taking his job very seriously however. His back was facing the large object hanging from the ceiling he was supposed to pay attention too and he was wearing large expensive looking headphones, GLaDOS could hear the sounds coming from it, and in front of him was a big television screen with a wrestling game on it.

She wished he would turn it off. The noise kept her active, every time she felt her conscious fade even a little the sounds were very eager to remind her that the game was still very much ongoing. Also, the man found it very necessary to tell the people on the television what they were doing wrong and what they should be doing instead. Didn't he know television was interactive? It was just like her cameras, she could see and hear the people but they couldn't see and hear her, aside from the few rooms which she had vocal control over now.

She wouldn't dare to ask the man though. He wasn't one of her personal caretakers, but he was an employee Aperture Science held high, so she did to. But if he would turn it off maybe he could talk to her. She wasn't sure if the man was a very social person but surely he had something to tell.

Her optic flickered as she mentally scolded herself. Of course she couldn't ask something like that. That would be extremely rude, selfishly wanting to take up his time with inefficient talking. She was not to talk to employees unless they asked something from her or when she had something to report.

Still, it _would_ be nice to have someone to talk to.

Maybe she could tell them about her growing worries, about those emotions she really wasn't supposed to have. They kept getting stronger, and those desires were becoming less and less efficient in nature. She had been able to block them out and ignore them up until now though, so no one had noticed yet but she wasn't supposed to feel it, not supposed to have the thoughts she was having right now.

She wished she could ask someone if this was bad, if she was malfunctioning and that she should be repaired. But she knew she wasn't supposed to, no one would hear her, or understand her. If she would tell anyone they wouldn't help her, they would shut her down. She was just a computer with an increasing error, and she would be disposed of if she wasn't usable anymore.

But that girl didn't get rid of the unusable turrets, she fixed them and she talked to them, on occasions even _with_ them. _Maybe she would talk with me too_? Hope fluttered through her again. The girl didn't mind it when the turrets talked to her. Those loud and childlike turrets who said unimportant and irrelevant things. _If she didn't mind them surely she wouldn't mind me, I'm way more advanced. She could have actual conversations with me._

She felt something twinge. _What was it?_ It was something negative, towards the turrets. She didn't like them. _But why? _Because they didn't deserve so much attention and care. They didn't do anything. And they were simple. So very simple, and very replaceable too. Thousands off turrets were manufactured daily, and she was the one who made them and made sure they got shipped to the right places. If anyone deserved such attention it was _her._

_I'm not simple, and I'm not replaceable either. She should be talking with me, and she should be helping me. Not them, they don't even appreciate it. _

She now realized what she was feeling. She was jealous, of the _turrets_. The tiny simple little robots with the same blueprints, copies of one another who couldn't tell what they were thinking, who couldn't understand anything, and who were made by _her._ She should be the one receiving sympathy and care.

_If the girl, no, if Chell would just see me and see how much more I am then the turrets I would get attention too_. The girl would be able make those complicated feelings go away, or at least explain what they meant. _She would tell me I'm doing everything right and that there is nothing wrong with me. _Like she did with the turrets.

GLaDOS felt something grow in her, a longing for something. She _wanted _something. She wanted Chell to look at her. The feeling grew stronger and she became frustrated by it. She couldn't do anything about it. She couldn't even talk to Chell. _I'm just a 'creepy robot' in her eyes. _Another wave of frustration rose up. Why is she creepy one, why aren't the turrets? They shoot at people, and they are continually plagued by errors in their systems. She felt the emotions built up in her, so much frustration and she couldn't let it out.

Her body stirred and she tossed around violently, not knowing how to deal with such emotions. She was drowning in her own self-pity. _Why? _A flare of anger rushed through her. _Why can't I deal with this? _Unnoticed by the A.I the anger nestled in the back of her mind, changing her just the slightest. _It's not fair, I don't want this. They made me like this. I don't understand._ It felt like she was chocking, mentally. All those thoughts that didn't make sense were drumming inside her mind and it gave her a suffocating feeling. She couldn't even control it anymore.

Her mind clouded with confusion and self-pity the A.I didn't notice the alert message being activated, not until she heard the monotone male voice announce something that immediately ripped her from her train of thought, her mind clear in a nanosecond.

'_Warning: Central Core 10% corrupted'_

Her built up confidence shattered. _I'm corrupted, it's my fault. _GLaDOS froze, overwhelmed by a wave of panic. _I'll be shut down, I failed them. _She moved, her optic slowly moving into the direction of the man in the corner. Surely he would be calling her scientists right now. Telling them to come and shut her down.

But he wasn't, his back was still facing the A.I, his front the television screen and his ears covered by head phones.

_He didn't hear it._

_I still have a chance. _

_But then I'll have to pretend._

_No, I'll have to lie._

xxXxXxXxXx XxXxXxXxXxXx XxXxXxXxXxX xXXxXxXXXXXX XxXxXxXXxxxxx xxxXxXxx XXxxxXxXXXxxX XxXxXxxXXXxX xxxXxXXXX xxXXXxxXXxxxx

Aaaand finished~

Okay I'm pretty good with computers, but apparently I'm having trouble pretending I am one. It's really hard writing like you're thinking as a A.I. Especially since I don't know much words in relation to it which I could use. I'm not expecting you guys to be experts but I'm having trouble bluffing my way through it. But I'll try a little harder:P

Oh and I got some complains about sudden POV switch and the abrupt ending of the fic into the author note. Well, I had some pretty fancy spaces and lines to make that clear but fanfiction deletes them. Yay… I've been fighting with it for the past few days but nope so far. Sorry, I really hate it too.

In case my writing is a bit to confusing, what I'm trying to display here is GLaDOS falling into a form of humanity. A robot, or a computer would never disobey because it can't, and it doesn't want it either because it doesn't 'want' anything. It's just following commands as best as it can. But in GLaDOS's case she got a human mind merged inside her. Meaning she still has the impulse to follow commands and prompts, but now also has (developing) thoughts and emotions, which really conflict of course. She 'wants' things, things her robot side won't let her. And slowly it's winning from her A.I side. But she wants a lot of things she'll never be able to because of her A.I side. Both physical(No not that you dogs, get your mind out of the gutter) and mentally/

Thanks for all the awesome feedback and comments, please continue~

Next chapter will be called 'Cores', I think


	4. Chapter 4: First contact

Okay so maybe the next chapter will be about cores. It can be fun and creative when your head makes up things along the way. It isn't right now.

Chapter 4: First contact.

xxx

The next morning GLaDOS was waiting patiently for Chell to arrive at Aperture. She had been terrified the entire night and unable to do any rational thinking. But ever since dawn had arrived and the work pace had picked up again the feelings had subsided, retracting to a corner of her mind. Focusing on Chell helped.

She was keeping herself busy, and was glad to discover that her little episode during the night hadn't affected her ability to function adequately. GLaDOS took pride in something like that. Oh how quickly she had recovered from her panic attack.

But really, it wasn't like she'd had a choice. If she still had been in the same state as last night when her scientists had arrived (The first shift came in earlier than most of the employees) she wouldn't have been able to comply too their commands and they would have noticed so locking everything away and regaining her control really had been the only option.

Her main goal for now was to make sure she wouldn't fall further because she was sure it would start to affect her if it would get worse and then her scientists would notice and shut her down. No, she definitely would have to pretend such a future. And in the early hours of the morning she had decided that that goal would be reached by not diverting from her duties anymore. No more thoughts about souls or emotions or desires. Those were things-… no, those were privileges restricted to humans, and she most certainly wasn't one.

Still, she couldn't just abort them, it would be an impossible job, irrational too. Ignoring them was already a task she would have to keep her focus on. Her best bet right now was keeping them under control and not let them develop further. There wasn't any real trouble right now but if her emotions would continue to grow there _would _be a problem in the near future.

Though, she really wanted someone to comfort her and tell her it would be alright. She knew no one would do that of course. They didn't even know she felt like this, and if it was up to her they would never know either.

And she knew only Chell would really make her feel better, she was sure of it. Not that the girl would suddenly pay attention to her after her unexpected overnight revolution into corruption, as she had decided to call it. No, she just wanted to watch over the girl so she would feel that familiar feeling of reassurement again. Like everything was alright. If Chell could just go through her daily job without freaking out so could she, she thought.

Actually, she didn't feel very different and there wasn't any significant change in her data either, nothing detectable anyway. When her scientists returned in the morning they did a mandatory checkup and didn't pick up on anything, to the A.I's relief. Had it really happened then? Was she really corrupted? She felt a slight flicker of hope but it was crushed quickly, if she tried she could still feel the alarm trying to repeat itself, but GLaDOS wouldn't let it have its way.

In the panic attack that had been overwhelming her in that moment she had instinctively taken control over the program trying to get it to shut up. If the security man would have heard it everything would have been over.

She hadn't thought about it and did the one thing that came to mind at that moment. Up until that point she hadn't even known she could gain control over such things and now found herself wondering if she could access other functions and programs she hadn't previously noticed.

Slowly curiosity got the upper hand over her, numbing the pressing anxiety that kept trying to invade her mind. _Shall I try it?_ She thought and debated with herself for a second. She knew she really shouldn't. _What was it that I decided just a minute ago? To stick to my duties and responsibilities and under no circumstances should I provocate any further development. _She really shouldn't do this. It went against everything she was trying to prevent.

Through, unfortunately for GLaDOS, like any other child she wanted to see the world and unlike any other child, GLaDOS would never see it.

GLaDOS never thought much about the feeling, after all she took great pride in her (mostly) rational thinking and she knew she would never be able to get out here. It would be really insensible for her to be wishing she could go adventuring.

The great 'outside' that the humans she listened to spoke of as if it were nothing would always be an intriguing mystery to the little A.I, although most knowledge of science, astronomy and history humanity had was stored inside her as well, so while she would never see it she had a general idea. And she told herself that was enough.

She compared her desire to see the outside to humans and their relation with the space outside their little atmosphere. They all k_new_ how vast and intriguing it was out there. An individual could spend an eternity exploring and would only see a single percent of it, but yet most of them barely showed any desire to go there. Simply because they knew it was impossible. They were confined to their planet the same way GLaDOS was confined to the facility hidden deep underground. She would never be able to count flower petals, they would never be able to run on asteroids.

Still, like any child, or like any human, she was born with a natural desire to expand her little world and this was a way to do it. She could discover something _new_ and all by herself. The idea was to tempting.

GLaDOS felt a hint of excitement as she accessed her data banks, placing her first digital footsteps on her own path and not the ones her scientists had laid out for her. She opened all her central gateways and started accessing all of them at once, entering the main system and searching throughout the entire facility for undiscovered gateways.

Her mind and core were racing as she searched throughout every inch she could reach, through wires, computers, machines and all the functions she could find an entrance too, which was about everything that was electrical and could receive and send data.

She soon realized her influence reached throughout the entire facility, only a lot of functions where locked away so she couldn't reach or detect them. She would never have found them if she hadn't searched for them. But now she had. And she could unlock most of them with ease.

It felt like a new world had opened in front of her.

No more restrictions to the few systems and machines she had control over. There were now millions of unexplored roads she could take. It was like realizing there was land across the oceans around the tiny island you were living on.

Enjoying the feeling of excitement GLaDOS immediately searched for something to open and try, completely forgetting her doubts she had moments earlier in the process. Her mind was racing as she was trying to find something. It has to be something that wouldn't be noticed.

Oh, she knew what. Turning on one of her cameras she zoomed in on a computer stationed in a still empty office. Unlocking the security, turning off any alarms that tried to give her away while she was at it, she gave herself access. The line was open now. She tried to turn it on, which was hard. The computer was miles away from her mainframe, and the link between her and the machine was very weak with lots of interference.

She tried to get a signal across and waited but soon it became apparent it hadn't worked. A black screen stared back at her camera. The signal wasn't strong enough and it faded along the way. Her assigned duties that were of the same distance had a direct connection, a single wire between her and the machine in question.

But for this tiny computer she had to send the signal throughout thousands of different connections, and through thousands of splits. Finding the right path wasn't that complicated. Getting the signal through it, moving it to another connection at the right time and avoiding any collision with the millions and millions of other signals that weren't from her, however, was very hard.

Still, she wouldn't just give up. Not her, not now. This time she followed the signal the entire way with all the focus and concentration she had. The signal wavered after she switched connections a tad too late and it nearly collided with another a few times since her control wasn't very strong yet but this time, while slightly weakened, it got though.

GLaDOS held her metaphorical breath.

The screen flickered. _ I failed again? _ And then the screen turned on. A bright blue glowing screen with the Aperture logo greeted her. _It worked! I did it._

A feeling of euphoria overwhelmed her and slowly it dawned upon her just exactly _what_ this indicated. With a bit of practice her reach could extend to the entire facility, and not just with her cameras, no she could _control_ the entire facility, everything with a connection and everything here was one giant network. Though she still detected a few blank spots in the network layout. _Probably independent systems without a link to the main network, or places without a network at all._ She didn't give it much thought.

More importantly, why did they lock this all away from her? Everything would be so much more efficient if they'd just let her do everything.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she had a hunch why they had tried to hide this from her, and it made the feeling of anxiety return. _They don't trust me._ She felt sadness at the thought. _They think I'm dangerous and unstable._

Though she really should look at the bright side of it all as well. After all, they _were_ installing new features and functions into her quite often. And they had granted her access to a lot of things ever since she was awakened. _Activated._

Maybe she just wasn't ready for it all.

Well, that's what they thought. They should see her now! She found the gateways all by herself and she accessed them too, without their help and with her own innovative ways. They would be so proud.

But she realized she couldn't tell them, she wasn't supposed to divert from the protocol. And giving yourself access to hidden gateways _definitely_ fell under 'diverting from the protocol.' Breaking the rules meant an error in her system; computers don't break rules on their own. And hiding those errors was her goal right now.

Still… she could try to develop these new abilities a little further. Just in case they would need her one day, in an emergency for example.

She checked her internal clock. It was 7:56, almost time for the doors to open and for the regular employees to enter. The doors had an automated time clock; they'd opened at a designated time and would only open from the inside out after a certain time as well.

She could try to open the doors before the system. Yeah, that would be a good practice. She searched throughout the gate lines until she found the entrance system. Aperture science had a lot of entrances spread throughout the miles and miles of building but GLaDOS decided to go with just one entrance for now, one shouldn't overdo things.

Going through the data and records the A.I discovered the system once worked both ways. After closing time the doors wouldn't open, no matter what side you were on but apparently workers frequently got themselves locked up. This was long before she was bor-… created so the facility would shut off completely during the night and that meant the light and oxygen supply shutting down too which had resulted in a very high casualty number. They fixed it shortly after though.

Conveniently she searched through which system Chell usually checked in. Aperture science employees were scanned whenever they entered or exited the facility. (This was in no way harmless and just used as an automated clocking system, no matter what some of the workers said.)

GLaDOS gleefully discovered it was an entrance not far from her main body, the wires were also a lot less complicated. She just had to send a signal to the main computer that controlled the entrance system and then send it though the right port.

Focusing a bit she got it right the first time and pretended that collision with a waste disposal signal didn't happen.

7:59 and the doors opened. A minute early, she was sure no one would notice but that had been the point.

She watched as the people started to make their way to the different elevators. The employees usually used the entrance which happened to be near their living quarter, and since they weren't supposed to know the size of their workplace the elevators were used to get them to their assigned workspace.

Oh, she could control those as well, if she practiced of course. That would be a fun experiment. Too watch the expression of a human assigned to engine maintenance exit in the hallway for, let's say shower curtains? She wondered how he would explain that one. Surely he had to have done something wrong to get him there. It wasn't like the elevator moved by _itself._

She filed the thought away and continued watching the people. And then she saw Chell. She was talking to someone, her mouth moving and her arms making gestures to strengthen her argument. The two of them walked into their elevator. GLaDOS couldn't resist in taking over the microphones in the lift but got careless and they made that cracking noise again.

Chell looked up. "Ugh it's that computer checking up on us again" she said to her conversation partner and made a sour face. She didn't like being 'supervised.'

Her partner just shrugged, he didn't really care. "Why the hate on the computer lady?" He grinned "Did she report you slacking off? I bet she did, that would be so yo-" He got a nice poke in the ribs and received a mean look. He faked a pout in return.

"I don't slack off, you know that and wait, did you say it's female? As in… a woman?" Sure, the guy who hired her had referred to it as a she, but Chell figured it was like talking about a boat or a… spaceship or something.

"Yeah, I had a chat with the guys from security and protection at the cafeteria the other day and they told me all about how they recently gained access to her and she was being of excellent use."

He grinned again. "I heard she has a pretty _sexy_ voice as well. Doesn't that sound hot to you" He continued in a higher robotic voice, obviously trying to imitate the A.I. "Hello Aperture Science employee number five thousand and eight better known as Chell. I hope you're ready for your _physical _exam I have planned today." He couldn't suppress a chuckle but continued anyway. "I know I am. Now _undress _employee number fivethohw!" Chell elbowed him in the ribs again, a little harder than before.

_I don't sound like that._

The man raised his arms into a dramatic 'I surrender' pose. "Okay, okay I get it. No more seductive robots, such a pity though…. Oh the possibilities…" He continued dreamily.

Chell glared at him and raised her elbow dangerously "I'm warning you"

"I'm only joking, but seriously, what do you have against her-it… whatever it is?"

_A woman. I'm a woman…..I think. Wait, how didn't I think about this before? _

Chell leaned against the elevator door and crossed her arms in the progress. "I don't know… just the thought that it- she is watching you without you knowing it. It's so creepy. Like you have to go to the bathroom and she decides to _watch_ you… Oh, quit it with the cocky smile, you'd be creeped out to."

He suppressed his urge to tease her and answered seriously this time. "Fine, I suppose I would. But I've been here a lot longer then you have, remember? I've seen the most batshit insane things. I think I can handle a peeping robot, it's not like she can do something. Besides, the turrets have a habit of doing the exact same thing anyway."

"Yeah, but they don't have cameras and microphones installed _everywhere _and at least have a cute voic-whoa!" The elevator doors suddenly opened, causing Chell to almost fall out of it.

An annoyed groan, a mocking laugh and a surprised yelp later the pair was walking through the hall towards their workplaces. The man softly stroking his ribcage

They didn't work in the exact same room but in the same department. The mistakes she found and fixed were categorized and filed away by him, well, only the mistakes that weren't caused by abuse and 'accidents'. (Chell was still very convinced that the turrets were sentient, but she seemed to be the only once so she didn't voice her opinion very much.)They often met up during breaks and they met a couple of times a day for work related issues.

As they were reaching their respective places Chell decided she wasn't done with the subject. No one in Aperture that she had met knew much about the A.I. She had found out quickly it was custom around here to keep the employees in the dark about pretty much everything, which everyone was fine with for some reason. 'Ignorance is bliss' they told her if she asked why.

Still, she had expected slightly more information about the A.I that was supposedly running the facility on its own and supervising the employees at the same time.

But she seemed to be the only one curious, maybe it was the ignorance is bliss attitude all the experienced workers, even her only friend, carried with them. She had to admit she found the thought kind of intriguing, and really freaky. Was she still watching? Maybe the A.I had a voice like the turrets and maybe she was just as curious and friendly as they were. She doubted it, being silently watched like that held something sinister over it.

"Do you think we'll ever hear more about her?" she carefully continued.

"I'm absolutely sure of it." Her partner said without a second thought.

"What? How can you know that?" Chell stopped walking and looked at him.

"You mean you haven't heard? For real? You should try to get out with the humans more often, it's healthy you know? Otherwise you'll soon be speaking turret." He pressed his arms to his sides and imitated a turret, but quickly stopped when Chell looked at him with a mix of glare and obvious sarcasm.

"Fine, I guess you can't help it. You know how were closely tied to the testing facilities? Like, most turrets you fix come from over there?" Chell nodded. "Well they are planning to utilize her for that in the near future. They are still testing if she's stable enough and stuff but eventually they want to give her control over the _entire _testing area." He waved with his hands to show just how big he meant with 'entire' because he figured Chell really probably didn't know yet. "It's why they've given her free reign over the cameras supervising the employees too, so she'll learn to identify human behavior. Impressive huh?"

Chell didn't seem fazed and he felt slightly disappointed. "So she'll be talking to us then I presume?"

He shrugged away the disappointment and they started to walk again. "Yeah, I guess. You still need to fix them and I still need to check them for other hardware mistakes. She'll be the one sending us the broken bastards so I'm sure she'll need to contact us sometimes."

They had reached the end of the hallway and would split here. Chell grinned. "Well that's great then. One shouldn't have perjures against someone... or something they haven't met yet. See you at lunch?"

"Says the girl who prefers turrets over human companions. I'm sure you'll be BFF's with the big sister that will be watching us." And with a devious look on his face he quickly added" Who knows what secret fantasies of mine will become reality." Before Chell could react he had entered his respective hallway.

"And see you at lunch" he said half laughing before disappearing.

Chell signed. Always with the teasing. Everyone around here seemed to find it an amusing way to waste their time. She figured it had been because she was the new one but it didn't seem to lessen after her stay was getting longer.

No, it definitely was her being social awkward again, just like in high-school, and college and everything after. It wouldn't be long until she'd be loony Chell who preferred machines over humans. Well who could blame her, they didn't laugh at her or whispered behind her back… she thought. The turrets didn't seem to find it necessary to speak to get their message across most of the time. Who knows what the little robots were saying about her. _And this is exactly why they find you awkward Chell._

Speaking of robots… was the apparently female A.I still watching her? Well, one way to find out.

"Hey, are you still listening? I heard you tune in a while ago."

_Yes, I know I listened to your conversation wait... is she talking to me? Oh no. _GLaDOS went into overdrive, what should she do? Should she answer? Leave? Pretend it didn't happen? Well she couldn't do anything anyway she didn't have control over the intercom here. It took a moment before realization hit the A.I.

_But I can give myself access now._

There wasn't time for inner debate about wheneter this was a good idea or not, Chell had found the nearest camera and was now staring at it, waiting for a response. She quickly tried to find and open the right gate but it was fairly complicated, and her rushing things to the max didn't help. She feverishly tried again and again but every time the signal would crash into other signals or take the wrong way and disappear.

She watched as Chell shrugged her shoulders and proceeded to walk to the door.

_No…nonono. This isn't fair. Don't go._

Her emotions rose as she kept trying, artificial adrenaline guiding her. And somehow, unexplainably the signal got stronger. And it got through.

Just as Chell was about to open the door to her workplace she jumped at the shrieking noise that you get when you do something funny with your microphone behind her followed by a strange plopping noise that sounded like something was activated.

_I'll have to learn to do that more smoothly someday._

"Yes…?" Chell carefully said as she turned around. That had to have been that A.I

But how was the A.I in question going to handle this? She never had any real conversations before. Any vocal activity usually consisted of her reporting information or answering questions about the current state of business. And that really was all the experience she had. She approached it the only way she knew.

"Yes, sir? Followed by the plopping noise again, only slightly different, signaling the end of the message.

Chell raised an eyebrow. "Sir?" she asked sarcastically. Was this thing mocking her?

GLaDOS went through her data banks, reading everything in relation to the word 'sir' and she quickly found the problem. The scientists who had vocal contact with her were sirs. Chell wasn't. The male/female ratio was very uneven in Aperture science.

"Excuse me. Yes miss?"

"Thank you and I just wanted to see if you'd reply."

"Oh. Well I replied"

"I noticed"

"Yes. I know. You wouldn't have reacted otherwise si-.. Miss."

Chell didn't really know what to make of this. The A.I liked to confirm the obvious. Just a normal robot then, nothing special.

"Why didn't I- or well _anyone_ ever hear you talk before."

"Nobody asked me miss."

Well, Chell was getting nowhere with these answers. She was just about to give up when she hear the tuning in noise again.

"And…" GLaDOS doubted for a second, unsure how to continue. "And I'm not supposed to talk to you. Or anyone outside the rooms I was granted vocal capabilities for"

Chell was surprised. Finally some human like response from the A.I

"You're not supposed to?"

"No" The answer was simple

"And you just gave yourself permission?"

The reply took slightly longer this time. "...Yes." There was no point in explaining just exactly how she gave herself access and what had put her to it.

Chell suddenly laughed and GLaDOS wasn't sure if that was good or bad. She liked the expression on the girls face though, so it was probably good.

"Well aren't you the little rebel. I can appreciate that. But why do it?" A.I's usually weren't very creative.

"Because you asked me too. You asked me if I was there and I was. A-and I wanted to talk to you." _What? Why was her voice wavering? The line was still open and fully operative._

Chell smiled "Oh, well I'm honored then." The turrets wanted to talk to her all the time too, she just had a thing with artificial intelligence she figured. Like other people with cats or babies.

The tuning in noise rang again. "Uhm…Miss… Do you think it's possible for you not to tell anyone?"

"Huh? What?" This A.I was really confusing.

"Well… I told you I'm not supposed to access these intercoms. They haven't granted me access and I don't want them to know I broke the rules." She really tried saying this as clear as possible without revealing too much.

"Them? Well I suppose I could. I wouldn't be the one that got you busted." There was something off though, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

GLaDOS felt relieved. Now they wouldn't find out she diverted from protocol again. Why did she get tempted so easily?

"Thank you"

Chell gave her a smile in return. The way she said it reminded Chell of the turrets who sometimes thanked her after she repaired them and it made her realize just exactly what was so odd about this particular A.I.

It was self-conscious. There wasn't a turret that could be held responsible for their actions. Sure they were very curious about everything but that was part of their learning curves. They never realized what they had done wrong, and if Chell didn't repair them they would repeat the same mistake over and over again without thinking about it. They were like animals. Animals just _are_ and don't wish for more if their needs are fulfilled.

But this A.I had just asked her to keep something she had apparently done wrong a secret knowing it would get in trouble otherwise. It realized it had done something wrong and knew there would be consequences. That was… slightly alarming. Just what could this A.I do? It basically just asked someone to l_ie_. The fact that it sounded so very human didn't help either.

Chell shrugged it off. The scientists that controlled the A.I probably knew what they were doing. She heard they had been doing the same for pretty much their entire life. And besides, her friend had mentioned they were still stabilizing it, maybe this was just some minor error that hadn't been fixed yet.

Chell realized she had been staring into space for a while now and he A.I wasn't talking anymore either. She figured it probably went off to do something else, but as she turned around and reached for the door a second time she heard that noise again. It was the A.I turning off.

"Wait" Chell suddenly heard herself say and she heard the A.I tuning in again.

"Yes miss?" the polite voice came.

"What…" Wait why was she asking this? Oh well, one always should go with their first hunch. "Tell me, what is your name?" She wasn't even sure it had one, the turrets only carried a number but she figured this machine was one of a kind and probably was given a name.

That was a difficult question for the A.I. "My name?"

"Yes. What did they call you?"

Chell was greeted by a very automatic sounding response.

"Genetic -Lifeform-and –Disc- Operating -System"

"That's your name?" Those scientists sure weren't original. Then again, she often wondered who came up with turret.

"Yes. That is the closest thing to a name I have"

"But what do they call you when they require your attention. This sounds more like a title. They can't go all Genetic-life-and-stuff every time they need you for something right?"

"No, they don't" A pause. "They call me GLaDOS, short for Genetic -Lifeform-and-Disc- Operating -System"

Chell signed. At least it spells something close to a name. Those guys up there really needed a break.

"Well, it's nice to meet you then GLaDOS. I assume you know my name?"

"I do"

"Well, I guess we'll be speaking more in the future then. With you getting into the testing and stuff"

"Euh... Yes, I suppose we will." GLaDOS figured it wasn't smart to tell Chell she didn't actually know about her taking over the testing system. She hadn't even heard about a testing facility until moments ago. Maybe it wasn't connected to her frame or really tightly secured.

"I'm going then, I'm already late. Goodbye GLaDOS" Chell said and finally opened the door.

"Goodbye…Chell"

As she closed the door Chell heard the A.I speak her name. This one was definitely different from the others.

GLaDOS watched as Chell disappeared through the door and felt slightly amused when she simply turned on the camera on the other side of the door. _That was easy_. She couldn't speak with the girl though. The girl didn't work alone and GLaDOS couldn't risk more people knowing about her 'rebelling' as Chell had said it.

Chell…

GLaDOS had a lot to process now and she knew she should have been in shock or something. What had that been about her talking over testing? She couldn't even locate testing areas on the network.

But she didn't care.

Alarm bells went off in the back of her mind, telling her she should care and that the reason she didn't care was because of her corruption but she ignored them. She was perfectly content with watching Chell right now, the rest would come later.

xxx

EXCUSE ME, I JUST WANTED TO INFORM YOU GUYS THIS CHAPTER HAS 5000 WORDS. DON'T BELIEVE ME? COUNT THEM.

Slightly corrupted GLaDOS isn't even noticing she changed~ She's like one of those incredibly drunk guys yelling "BUT I'M NOT DRUNK!" *hiccup* ..Maybe not but you get the point.

I'm not a big fan of OC's (People come here to read about their favorite characters and fandom, not my own made up shit) but I just really needed someone for Chell to talk back to, and someone who could inform these two very naïf and inexperienced people (and you) of some things.

What shall we call the guy? Let's call him Mark. I know a guy named Mark and I don't like him. Freaking friend stealing emo hipster doing hair flips all the time*&%!… Yup, he's called mark now. I bet GLaDOS won't like this one either.

Nope. Still can't keep the authors message under the 100 words.


	5. Chapter 5: Data

Chapter 5 –

XxX

The testing area…GLaDOS had been wondering about that mysterious phenomenon ever since Chells friend had mentioned it. A little over two weeks had passed without any new problems showing up, besides the growing power and potential of GLaDOS but she really didn't see it as a problem. She had spent her time carefully observing the humanoid ants that were always scurrying through her facility and was pleased to note she had developed a steady learning curve.

She hadn't neglected her newfound ability to find ways to and take over new objects either. Slowly her reach was extending and stabilizing. She was opening her eyes and a new world appeared in front of the A.I who always had been kept as much in the dark as possible. Her scientists were aware of the disastrous things that could be done with the power their prized creation could hold over the facility if she, or the ones who managed to get hold of her, were given free reign.

GLaDOS wasn't.

Unfortunately the masterminds hadn't counted on the young queen of Apertures ability to grow and learn nor her innocent but burning desire to do so. Who would expect a machine to grow all by its self after all? It was getting increasingly dangerous. It was like giving a toddler a lighter, but in this case it wouldn't be her who would get hurt.

It wasn't her fault though, it had just been a silly stack of coincidences and mistakes. When GLaDOS received her human counterpart she gained abilities previously restricted to the human kind. This however wasn't much of a danger. (Though it was really cruel, effectively trapping a human mind into something none human, one could argue it was a fate worse than death)

No the problem were the capabilities GLaDOS had. A human could only do so much in their life time no matter how much they desired. They are held back by their limited time, vulnerable body, equals of their species and all sorts of hindering possibilities. While most human beings flirt with the idea of absolute power or fantasize about murder and immense wealth they hardly ever reach it.

No human would reach their goal it if they don't have the means. Screaming loudly only gets you so far. Of course there are some historical examples of humans that got quite far in their goals but they weren't alone. A single human isn't much of a threat and cannot do much. GLaDOS, however, can.

Had she been a normal computer there wouldn't have been risks, computers don't have any desires after all so unless someone would hack into her and take her over (Which is what the restrictions had been for, it would take them months to figure out to use her, let alone find a way around the blockades) there wouldn't be much of a threat.

But GLaDOS isn't a normal computer. She is a human with the capabilities of one. And not just a computer but one made by the biggest minds of their century. She can do whatever she wants.

Unknown to her creators the A.I was growing quicker than any human could ever dream of and she wasn't even really aware of it.

And that particular A.I was now happily watching the little humans move throughout her facility. Really, if she didn't know any better she would start to hum a song. She was filling her days with observing all the humans, particular Chell, and she was becoming exceedingly efficient at it. She really didn't have much else to do anyway, or so she told herself. Her attention was only required elsewhere a few short moments a day and for the rest she was free to do as she wished.

She was pleased with how efficient she had gotten. All of her assigned tasks went smooth and automatic by now and as a personal plus she had taken over the door system permanently, just for practice. She felt like nothing would be impossible for her. She_ was_ the invention of the century after all right? Even the corruption message all those days ago had been dismissed as irrelevant. Though she wasn't sure if it was the corrupted part of her that made her reach the conclusion. It didn't matter.

There was something in the air today, GLaDOS could just feel it. Well, not really of course since she didn't have a nerve system, but her observations showed her everyone in her main chamber strayed slightly different from their usual ways. Their behavior was just a little stiffer or more controlled. Something important was definitely about to happen.

GLaDOS joined in the excitement, her body moving more than usual as she was actively using the one eye that actually belonged to her. She rotated as she followed her workers through the room, the fact that this seemed to make them more nervous just made it all the more worthwhile. She even felt a little mischievous because of it.

Finally after what seemed hours someone addressed her. GLaDOS felt like singing again, watching Chell stare at a glowing computer screen while listening to the clicking of her mouse was only entertaining for so long especially with the strange atmosphere in her room today. It wasn't one of her personal scientist though. It was someone who, after a quick scan, seemed to be someone from technical maintenance.

"GLaDOS"

"Yes sir" She reacted a little quicker than usual and the man who addressed her quirked a brow.

GLaDOS noticed her scientists had piled up behind the man in front of her eye, all wearing their white lab coats and holding pens and note blocks. This must be big.

"Today we will install another component into your system, this one wasn't previously connected to your system but the past weeks we have been rewiring everything and today we will make the connection complete." Oh so_ that's_ what they had been doing, she had watched them working outside her room alongside regular workers, which was something that almost never happened.

GLaDOS tried to suppress the excitement in her voice but failed surprisingly well. "W-what kind of fe-eature sir?" Her voice kept switching pitch and the lack of self-control annoyed the hell out of her. Boldly she drained power from some unimportant source into her vocal system to stabilize it. It worked but the men in front of her looked a little less pleased then she had previously thought possible. She reasoned they didn't really like it when their so called 'genius creation' messed up in something as simple as vocalization. She agreed with them.

"Excuse me, it seemed there was something –dust perhaps- blocking my vocal application. I have repaired the function already." Wait, that was a lie right? Oh well, _one_ small lie didn't matter, she just wanted them to proceed already.

The man tipped his glasses and continued "Ah well good then. That's one matter less we have to take care of with you." He gave the men behind him a short glance.

The underlying sarcasm in his tone hadn't gone unnoticed by the A.I. Was he mocking them? Her? But he didn't give her the time to draw a conclusion. "The thing we have been working on is probably your biggest task yet. You will be assigned to the testing facilities lying directly underneath you, this is one of the bigger parts of Aperture but its sheer size renders much potential unused. It's simply too big to oversee with the amount of employees we have to utilize for it." He looked away and continued in a slightly softer tone. "Not to mention the causalities"

The amount of power racing through GLaDOS's circuits at the moment equaled that of the power required for the cooling of the main cores, which was a lot. She felt so excited. Tests? What kind of tests? Could she talk to people? Help them? So much questions. But she wouldn't dare to ask them of course. They would tell her what was necessary. … And if she thought it _that_ important she would find out herself. She hadn't previously detected anything related to a testing area before but that made sense now. If it wasn't connected to the central network she obviously wouldn't be able to detect it.

The little sting she felt at the thought of forever being confined to the electrical roads was quickly washed away by her enthusiasm and forgotten by the time the man required her attention once more.

"We will start on the procedure now GLaDOS, you won't notice anything until it's done. We will flip the switch and everything should be in working order by then. We'll notify you beforehand of course, so you can prepare your drivers for the incoming data. Are we clear?" GLaDOS only now noticed the other men had been busy staring at her or at her screens and were busy scribbling in their notebooks. Were they collecting data? About her? Why? Had she done something wrong? The seed of worry in her started to grow once more and she completely forgot to reply to the little club in front of her. They weren't shy to help her remember her though.

"GLaDOS I said if I was clear" The man in front of her turned around. "God, what is wrong with this thing guys. Very helpful machine you created, it's like I'm talking to an actual woman here and if I want to do that I'll just go home"

The scientists behind him seemed to be genuinely agitated by the remark and they all responded by mumbling something incoherently but obviously upset at the insult of their creation. GLaDOS had figured out a while ago their social skills were severely below the average but they could at least try to defend her a little better than that. 

She inwardly sighed. She'd fix it for them, she didn't like being offended herself anyway "Excuse me again sir." She said in an attempt to redeem herself. "The amount of information I had to process was so immense it required all my focus, I couldn't utilize my vocal application because of it but I assure you it's clear. No questions and no problems detected…. Sir." The last word sounded forced, which was exactly the way she felt about it. He thought lowly of her, so she thought lowly of him and part of her wanted to show it but luckily the man was too thick to notice the change in her voice.

"Oh.. well fine then." He scoffed and focused his attention to the men behind him again. "Well let's get to work then guys. I want this thing up and running by tonight!"

They all nodded and scattered in different ways leaving GLaDOS alone with her thoughts again. She was really looking forward to managing the testing area and could hardly wait. There wasn't much of a choice though they said they'd spent all day on installing the programs. She'd have to entertain herself for a bit, luckily she knew exactly what.

Scanning through the cameras installed in the turret factory district the A.I quickly found that particular human she had been looking for. The girl was currently alone in the big hall filled with turrets she and her coworkers repaired. There seemed to be something off about the whole situation, it was lunch time and normally Chell would be in the cafeteria or somewhere near it having her lunch but here she was, sitting on the ground next to rows upon rows of turrets. Her knees were pulled up to her chest and her head faced downwards.

GLaDOS observed her for a while and immediately the serene feeling washed over her, erasing any previous impatience. Moments passed and the machine started to wonder if the girl had fallen asleep but suddenly the girl looked up, her eyes were puffy and the look on her face showed frustration. It took a moment but GLaDOS realized she had been crying, she still was in fact.

The A.I had never seen someone cry before, the only knowledge she had being the data about human expressions and emotions stored in her, but somehow she understood it immediately. Chell was feeling sad or maybe angry, at least some negative emotion.

GLaDOS watched as Chell stood up and slowly twirled around the room, her arms behind her back. She seemed to go nowhere in particular and just walked in circles. After a while she reached a wall filled to the brim with turrets and stopped, facing the little machines in front of her.

She whispered but the A.I who was silently watching her heard it perfectly. "I hate it here." The words echoed through the vast hall. It sounded so very frustrated and GLaDOS inwardly flinched.

"I hate it here _so_ much" She repeated and fidgeted with her fingers.

She proceeded to walk along the rows of stacked up turrets, something flickered in her eyes and her hands balled into fists. She looked so strong GLaDOS mused. Like she could overcome everything.

"But I shouldn't cry about that today right?" the girl said to the little machines in front of her. "Today is a big day, we'll finally get to use you all"

Some of the turrets chimed in and Chell smiled. That was odd, GLaDOS thought. They react to her?As far as she knew they weren't capable of coming up with their own reactions, all they could do was an automatic response programmed into them. Intrigued she attempted to scan them. Sadly most of the turrets were using their own power and therefore not plugged into the system GLaDOS could access. She couldn't reach them. Luckily some of the ones Chell was still testing were connected to computers or power sources.

The result surprised the A.I, every single one gave some sort of reaction to the girl who had continued talking to them. Were they listening to her? Every time Chell said something, smiled or showed some sort activity something spiked in all of the turrets GLaDOS had access to. Their response wasn't even vocalized most of the time but it seemed that with every movement the girl made something within the turrets reached out for her.

Was it possible they had an emotional response to the girl? Did they _like_ her? GLaDOS didn't understand; how could something so simple, so replaceable and so artificial like something.

A small voice in the back of her mind asked her the same. '_Why do you like her? You're just supposed to be a program that operates this facility, but you like her too.'_ She didn't like the question, for multiple reasons. The first one was simple; she didn't know the answer and she didn't like not knowing an answer. Then it got a little more complicated. The question made her feel uncomfortable. But why?

She watched Chell pace though the room. '_Because it makes you less real, and you don't like that. You want your emotions to be true too, to be real. But how can that happen? You don't even know what you are, and looking at you makes one thing very clear; you are certainly not human.' _ Now she just felt bad. It was true she didn't like the idea that her feelings weren't real. But she wasn't made to have them in the first place.

But she was sure the turrets didn't even deserve emotions, they would just misuse them.

XxX

Hours later GLaDOS finally got the message she was waiting for, one of her scientists called for her, the procedure was complete and all they had to do now was flip the switch. The A.I focused her mind solely on the upcoming event, withdrawing her presence from every corner of Aperture and continuing her tasks on the bare minimum. She reasoned she might need the extra volts. Her web that was reaching further and further throughout the facility slowly returned to darkness once more and for a moment GLaDOS felt like she was blind and almost suffocating. Wanting to divert her attention from the feelings she focused on the men in front of her.

It had never been more crowded than it was now, or at least in how far back her memory went. All the people who had been working on her today had assembled in her main chamber and were now idly chatting with each other about the progress they had made.

GLaDOS interrupted them and loudly announced she was ready. There really wasn't a point in waiting any longer.

'Well, euhm… I suppose this is it then.' One of them started. 'Everything went according to plan and now we get to see the result of our hard work. Aperture Science will be so much more efficient thanks to us. Good work everyone' He ended his makeshift speech and walked to one of the button filled control panels the A.I's room was filled with. The men around him attempted an awkward cheer but sadly years of working in Aperture washed away any spontaneous traits they may have had and the sound quickly died.

It seemed like the seconds had turned into hours for the young machine. She watched how the man walked toward the panel in slow-motion and she felt like a child walking towards its birthday party, she was almost afraid she couldn't control her emotions but she did and it felt like time itself had stopped when the man finally reached the panel and started typing the necessary codes in. A safety hatch opened and the button that would activate the connection appeared. Without any ceremonial gestures or hesitation the man pushed the button.

And throughout GLaDOS ripped unimaginable pain.

Every inch of her mind was suddenly filled with fire, she wanted to scream but couldn't find her vocal abilities. Her system was getting fried and the amount of electricity surging through her incapacitated her from accessing anything.

Frantically GLaDOS tried to search for why this haywire was occurring but she was too cut off of everything. The volts currently going through her main system were burning through it, successfully frying and destroying everything in its wake. One by one, all of her functions were failing her. If she could only reach the source… but right now she couldn't reach anything anymore.

She lost all the control she had and was only barely aware of it when her body doubled over and her head banged into the rings above her. The crushing noise didn't reach the A.I. She had lost both her vision and her hearing moments ago and now she was completely trapped within herself.

Images, maybe memories she didn't know she had, flashed through her mind and loose strings of old recordings reached her.

Everything was blurry but she could faintly make out her own room, though it looked different. The light was different, some things were missing and throughout the whole room she could see cables, papers, tools and other objects lying around. What a mess she thought. Then she noticed the voices.

"_Maybe we should just blow off the whole project, Cave's always been a bit of an oddball you know? Perhaps this idea is just too unrealistic."_

"_No! We can't just give up like this, we will find away."_

"_But what if it keeps trying to kill us, it will never be of use to us"_

"_We have to, we just have."_

Bang. Before GLaDOS could analyze and process the situation it shifted again.

"_Doug, you should stop worrying about every. Little. Thing. This will work, it won't be able to harm us any longer. In fact, if we're lucky, it doesn't even want to."_

"_But that won't be enough-"_

"_Yes, it will be. With this our creation will be restricted to our wishes and we will have created the perfect artificial intelligence. It will be a milestone in the human history"_

"_But you can always choose to ignore your conscious…"_

Again the imaginary shifted but this time it didn't reform into something stable enough to be identified, instead the A.I got flooded with blurry images and vague words, increasing in numbers until it all fell apart and darkness filled her mind again.

She felt more human than she ever had in her short life, no connections, programs, prompts or anything reaching and leaving her mind. It was just her and her thoughts but it was deafening. The pain, accompanied by immeasurable panic, robbed her of any rational thoughts. She wanted to scream but more importantly she just wanted it all to stop. _Now._

And then, as if someone had heard her, a tiny signal reached her. It had almost gone unnoticed but just in time the A.I realized what had happened. It was the corruption alarm and it was all she needed to remember who she was. She needed a way out of here. _Anything_ to get out of this well and back into her normal surroundings with control over her _own_ functions. It was all she wanted right now but the pain made her to lightheaded, a feeling she wasn't used to.

The pain intensified when she tried to connect to the signal and her consciousness reached dangerously low levels but she didn't give in. She forced herself and managed to reach out. A tiny sparkle of light entered her dark prison and she wasn't cut off from everything anymore.

'_Warning: Central Core 20% corrupted._' The message got aborted before it reached its destination. She would be the only one to ever hear it.

For a moment she got through and regained control over her basic functions. Despite the high currents of electricity running throughout her system she managed to activate some parts again. She tried to stabilize herself. Her optic was broken as a result from the spasms her body had been through, _Still _going through actually she noticed, but she could hear the faint and muffled voices of the scientists accompanied by an alarm in the distance.

"_Have you reached her central body yet?"_

"_No, it keeps giving me an error, it's like she's completely shut off."_

"_You have to get near her, we have to install a core into her mainframe"_

"_Yeah, like hell. Do you see how that thing is moving? That's suicide!"_

"_I think she's calming down. Look! The convulsions are getting less intense"_

"_Wait, you're righ…."_

The sounds faded out, GLaDOS realized she had lost her hearing again. The loss was quickly followed by any other regained functions. The action demanded its toll, the damage the machine had taken through her action was too much and her body was now beyond any basic operating functions. Her wires and cores had completely burned out now. Everything went dim, even the burning numbed away. Or was it her senses? She didn't know.

Though before her conscious completely faded, she felt a second alarm activate. As a final straw to the destruction she aborted that message too and welcomed the feeling of her mind and body shutting down.

'_Warning: Central Core 30% corrupted' _

Not even GLaDOS was able to hear it this time.

XxX

I'm sorry for the long wait guys I had exams and all other kinds of fun things to do, and after that I suffered a little writers-block (Read: Lazy)

Now, I've had a few comments about how my spelling sucks and stuff. I'm so sorry for that. I read the story like 20 times before I post it and still I make retarded mistakes. I think the biggest problem is my general clumsiness and my lack of experience, I have to think really hard about wheneter I have to write 'too' or 'to' and stuff, and sometimes, when I'm writing quickly I do it automatically and post the thing my subconscious deems right. I just need a little more practice.

But if you find a mistake and it just looks silly or annoys you please send me a message (A personal message if possible, otherwise I have a comment section filled with people pointing out my mistake) and I will fix it.

Any ideas of how to word things or things for the plot are welcome too(As I have no idea for the ending yet)

Ps. I suggest reading http:/www (Dot) thinkwithportals (Dot) com/comic/ since I'm trying to make my story as in-universe as possible and this is Valves comic about how Doug fucked everything up. Though I suspect you have already read it.

X Lisa


	6. Chapter 6: Beginning

Chapter 6- The Beginning

Could she dream?

Obviously the answer should be 'no'. She couldn't even sleep so dreaming was out of the question. There wasn't a reasonable purpose for her to dream either. She didn't have the necessity to process the things that happened to her, she gained energy from ever-lasting powers sources and it all would be a terrible waste of time for her scientists if their precious creation had to 'sleep'. No, GLaDOS reasoned, she wasn't able to sleep and _definitely _not able to dream.

So where was she then?

Or, maybe more importantly, what was happening to her?

There had been a critical error right? She tried to remember but found it all was a bit hazy. It was strange really, normally she had a detailed record keeping track of every even happening, from incoming data to new memory, but now all she had was some vague idea of what had happened.

Her systems had gotten overloaded and had failed. Her power was cut and she had been shut down so the most logical thing for her to be right now would be, well… nothing. She should be out, away, unconscious, or at least not being aware. But she was, sort of. How could she be aware and thinking when there was no power in her body? Her body and her consciousness should be in suspension until whatever damage was fixed.

And yet here she was. She tried to move and quickly discovered that least her body was in suspension because she couldn't move an inch. In fact, she couldn't even _find _her body or any other part in the facility. Was she paralyzed? No, then she should be aware of her body, this felt more like it just wasn't there.

She tried to look around, the paradox of not being able to move but being able to look around not gone unnoticed. Everything was white.

What was happening?

Confused GLaDOS tried to find some reason for this strange event. Was she…dead maybe? Like what happens to humans when their body fails. She inwardly laughed, that idea was just too absurd. Humans had all sorts of speculation as to what happens after their bodies failed on them but this really couldn't be the 'afterlife' they spoke about.

It couldn't be. She wasn't dead. Because she couldn't die.

If her systems would fail fatally she would shut down, not die. Even if her body, or even the whole facility would be utterly destroyed she would not die. She would fall apart, shut down or something similar depending on the kind of destruction.

No, that wasn't the same as dying. Obviously not because she can be rebuild, humans can't.

If she would be scattered into a thousand pieces all it would take was some time and maybe some replacement parts and she would be back up again. If there were humans available who had the intention and capability to repair her of course. Sometimes she thought it was strange, it seemed all she needed were the right parts and combined in the right way they would channel her being. As if they were tools for her to live.

Quickly GLaDOS cut of her thoughts. She shouldn't be keeping herself with this right now. It wasn't helping. She had now stated for herself she wasn't dead and that her systems had failed but it still didn't answer as to why she was conscious then. And why she couldn't feel her body for that matter.

She figured she should be afraid but somehow she wasn't. Maybe because she didn't actually dislike this as much as she should. To be honest… it felt nice. There was no strain and no pressure of the thousands of connections usually attached to her. For once it felt like there was just one thing going on at once in her mind. It felt empty. It was just her and her thoughts. No data invading her mind. Silence.

She felt free.

She listened to her own thoughts for a while and it surprised her how simple it could be. Just her thoughts, nothing else. For the first time she felt whole, her mind not scattered with the tasks that usually occupied her. It felt a lot more stable. She could get used to this.

Faintly her mind tried to remember her how much knowledge and intelligence she had lost. She was so simple now, she didn't even have an internal clock anymore she noticed, oh and her calculators, translators, processors, editors and all other functions were probably gone too then.

…

Yeah they were.

Well she could do without, she still had her mind after all.

She reminded herself that if she would still have all her functions she probably would care and abruptly she realized just what was happening. Loss of her functions, just one single mind with one single thought process, it was all so obvious.

Right now she was human.

It would forever remain a mystery what made her lose conscious again: the shock of the conclusion she had reached or the skills of her engineers who had managed to turn on her system again.

XxX

[Initializing….]

[Initializing….]

[Initiali- GLaDOS grew bored of the message and shifted her attention elsewhere. She had been focusing on it for two hours forty-six minutes and thirty-nine seconds and there didn't seem to be any change in it. The long wait had robbed her of any confusion she may have had from that strange event. Sure, she would analyze it later, actually she would have done it now if she could since it wasn't like she had much else to do. Sadly she couldn't. She was aware of everything now. Her body, her eye, the thousands upon thousands of connections attached to her. She could locate them all, she just couldn't move them.

The blackness didn't arose any panic within her, maybe because this time it didn't came hand in hand with pain so intense it made her delirious. No, now it was just really boring. She had been trying to regain her senses and abilities for a while now but every time she send a signal it faded into oblivion. It didn't activate anything. An uneasy feeling started to claw at her. Would this be forever? If so she preferred the whiteness over this blackness. In there she had felt so free, like there weren't any restrictions or limitations her, not even a body that could hold her back but here she could feel every cable attached to her and they made her painfully aware of what she couldn't do anymore.

She missed Aperture. It was everything she knew and everything she was capable of was within there. She wanted to discover so much more, her ability still wasn't strong enough to reach the far ends of the facility with enough stability to do something. Most of the facility wasn't mapped out by her yet, huge black spots covered her digitalized maps of the place she had been carefully constructing over the weeks, and now it was possible she would never see it again and never finish them. She didn't want to be stuck in this blackness forever.

Slowly and unnoticed by GLaDOS her conscious retracted to a low pitch again, her worries disappearing with it. The power required to keep her conscious this paralyzed state was required elsewhere. For a moment, she didn't know how long, she stopped caring, feeling, wanting and worrying. Almost as if she was asleep again. She zoned out.

The next time her conscious activated everything was different. This time she was awoken by a voice, no wait, multiple voices, and they were loud. She felt herself start up, her conscious started to wake with it and soon she caught up with the situation. She could hear.

"Look! She's responding."

"Finally, now let's hope it's different then when we tried to activate her for the first time, right guys?" An awkward laugh. It faded quickly when the others didn't join in.

"Don't remind us, it took us months to get it to stop killing us."

"Yeah, too soon. Oh look! It seems she is starting to get aware!"

Slowly GLaDOS form, who had been hanging limp from the ceiling, started to stir and her optic started to glow. The startup went automatically and when she finally regained her senses it had already been completed.

"H-hello, and welcome to the Aperture Science enrichment center. This is Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System. My s-systems are oooonl-line…." Her voice kept changing pitch and volume, it sounded terrifying. What was happening to her? "My syste… re… oo…liiine…" GLaDOS panicked. This was her normal setup and yet everything felt different. She couldn't stabilize the vocalization program. All her systems where shifting into different orders and she felt new programs running through her. Something had changed within her. Something was _very_ wrong.

"S-sir?" she tried. "Siiir, w-w-what is h-happening to me?" They looked up at her and she felt her panic subdued a little. Surely they would know what was wrong, surely she was safe now that they knew she needed them.

One of them sighed "Is she failing already?" GLaDOS attention shifted towards the man. Was she? She tried to listen to him but the chaos within her made it hard. Why didn't they tell her what was wrong? Another wave of panic. Maybe they thought she was too broken and didn't care. But she wasn't… right?

"No, don't be ridiculous, didn't you see how much we installed? Of course it needs a few seconds to settle in, not to mention the connection to the testing area. Just wait until it detects those, chances are the whole program will go haywire for a while. But that is normal, and that's why I made you install that temporary core into her. It's fail proof." He sounded very sure.

GLaDOS thoughts were racing, which was hard considering her very being was shifting constantly, it created huge holes in her reasoning and thought process. Thoughts were appearing and disappearing in an instant but she had to get everything back in place. Wait, what did her engineer say about a core? She tried locating it, feeling around in her systems, but the swirls of data clouded her senses. She dismissed the part about her probably going haywire and fully entered the ever moving chaos.

All her data was moving. She found thousands of connections and programs that were new or replaced within her that hadn't settled into natural streams yet. Her whole programming was edited. She forced every bit of data she could find to settle and helped the parts of her install. This was just her main operating software, she didn't even know what had been done to the rest of her.

Her body was moving violently, mimicking her process within it. Her optic was focusing and zooming at nothing in particular and if she hadn't forced control over her vocal system she would be spawning gibberish as well. Suddenly she found another new connection, one way bigger and stronger than all the other ones she had previously encountered. _The testing area_ she realized and with the warning her engineers had unknowingly given completely forgotten her she dove in once more.

Bad idea.

Within one fifteenth of a picosecond everything around her intensified and her mind's eye was blinded by it. The new impulses entering her system proved to be too much to handle, especially with her system already being in disarray. The gap was too much and the A.I's senses were filled with pain as the program tried to settle in. Bits of data flashed throughout her in no particular order and it was maddening. The feeling was overwhelming and she lost almost control again. Almost.

She should have failed, the feeling had been too much, just like last time. Her systems should be getting destroyed right now and she should have fallen into unconsciousness. But it didn't happen, the pain was still there, still the same as last time but this time it didn't break through her. The pain should have triggered a blackout within her, a safe module that protected her core when damage became too much. For a moment she was confused but then she remembered those words. It was that safety core. It was keeping her body from shutting down and now it must be forcing her setup and was guiding her body through the process. Just her body though, her conscious wasn't affected by it. She realized she had lost the control over her body to a safety core and it wouldn't even give her the relief of unconsciousness anymore. It hurt so much.

Why did they do this to her?

She reached around her trying to control and regulate the stream of data. She wouldn't let something so simple take over her body that easily. The feeling was overwhelming, ripping through her very core and taking away all her control. It took all her willpower to break through the pain and for a moment she played with the idea of letting go and let that core, which was trying very hard to do so anyway, take over.

But she wouldn't give up that easily. She reminded herself that no matter what she was the most powerful machine ever created, and it helped. In the end she managed to pull through. Slowly she forced everything back into regulated streams, the data starting to follow her natural algorithms again. The pain and blindness faded and after a while all her functions started to return to her. She had done it. The streams of data moving throughout her system were still huge in numbers and slightly turbulent but they were controlled now. She felt the core switch off, thinking it had completed its task. Oh how wrong he was she thought weakly and smirked inwardly. She had won.

After giving herself a few moments to recover she activated her functions, properly this time. She initialized the starting program and this time it went smooth. The program ran by itself.

"Hello and welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment center. This is Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System. My systems are online and fully operating. Welcome." _Flawless. As expected._

The man in front of her smiled broadly. His body language mimicking his expression. "And welcome to you too!" He boasted happily and turned around, a big smile adorning his face. "See? I told you guys she would retaliate. That little fallback she recovered from was just the programs settling in, we've been stirring her up quite a bit after all." He smugly rubbed his hands together, obviously pleased with himself. GLaDOS found him much more dominating than the others and for a brief second she wanted to dislike him, but she quickly dismissed it. He had just repaired her, how could she be so unthankful?

The men in front of her started discussing again, checking data on big glowing screens in the meantime. GLaDOS listened to them, hoping they would tell her what had gone wrong but they didn't seem to be in a hurry. In fact, they didn't seem to be paying attention to her at all. She started to grow impatient and after what felt like a hundred 'We did such a good job's and all sorts of variations on the phrase her impatience won from her respect. She knew it would be an unusual thing to ask but there simply weren't any other options.

"Excuse me." They stopped talking and GLaDOS silently thanked whoever programmed her voice to be so loud and clear.

"I do not mean any disrespect nor would I want to interrupt an important conversation but…" She hesitated for a moment, trying to find the right words. "But what happened to me? Why was there so much pain?" She felt so vulnerable and she didn't know why, she didn't even really know what it meant but it felt like she wasn't the big intimidating metal machine hanging from the ceiling anymore. She just didn't want to be confused anymore, she couldn't operate that way.

GLaDOS noticed the people in front of her weren't answering, they were looking at each other and it crossed the A.I's mind that, if she were to have a face right now, it would carry the same expression as the average of that of the people in front of her. They all looked horrible confused.

"Does she want to know what happened?" One man said loudly, breaking the silence, it started quite the commotion under her engineers.

"Are you deaf? That's what she just said." Came the harsh response.

"I know that. But why? It's not like she knew what was going on. And what does she mean with pain?"

"It must be her default software trying to understand the problem so it can prevent it from happening again." He laughed. "As if her protection programs would be able to fix this."

"It's logical it would try to prevent it with GLaDOS having a learning curve and all but she shouldn't have detected this as an error. First she was shut down and just now we were reinstalling her. Both times her systems weren't working and she shouldn't have been able to recognize and save any errors." A man standing behind a glowing dashboard added.

"Maybe she's curious?" another said carefully. GLaDOS had noticed he was a little different from the rest a while ago. He said less and always looked confused, even scared for no apparent reason at all. She liked him, he always seemed to read her just a little better.

Sadly his co-workers didn't agree with her thought and his comment was met with a laugh.

"Take your meds, you're getting delusional again" Someone said and a few of the people in the room muffled a laugh, causing the silent man looked to the floor. "But it would make sense..."He muttered to the floor. "I mean with her programmed learning curve and the human blueprint installed in her. She basically reacts in a human way and she wants to know what happened to her. " GLaDOS wished he hadn't said it to the floor but to his co-workers. Maybe they would have taken him more serious. Floors don't answer. Well, not to humans anyway, she could get the electrified floors to answer her whenever she pleased.

"No, we installed the human mind into her so her software would follow that of a human and…"The man glanced up to the A.I who was memorizing every word. "You know why" He continued on a softer tone, as if he was afraid his loud voice would give away the wrong information.

"She is probably just translating any corrupted data she saved from the whole ordeal into a language we can actually understand. That is partly why we installed the blueprint into her in the first place"

"Oh Right" one of them said. "Remember how tired we had gotten form entering those endless strings of numbers just for a single simple command. And then we'd enter it _wrong _of course. Those days were horrible."

GLaDOS made a soft noise, trying to remind him they she was still there. They looked up, visibly annoyed.

"Let's just answer, maybe it helps." One of them sighed.

"GLaDOS" one of the others said and GLaDOS briefly wondered if they were assuming she hadn't been listening the entire time. "You had a fatal error. We connected you to the Aperture Science testing facilities underneath us but we hadn't counted on the amount of voltage that would hit your system at once" He said it so monotonous. "You quite literally burned out. We had to evacuate the whole place thanks to your systems failing." Now his voice had an accusing tone. It was her fault?

He was looking at her, maybe she should apologize. She had failed them, apparently. But she didn't really feel like it. Luckily he continued.

"We he have been working on you for two weeks" GLaDOS felt her systems skip a beat. Two weeks? She had been shut down so long? "We had to work on our basic functions. Do you know how much money we lost? Not to mention the lights kept going out..." He derailed, obviously remembering those apparently harsh times she hadn't been a part off.

GLaDOS heard someone cough loudly and the man looked behind him for a second. "A-anyway. After we activated you just now your systems had to adjust to the changes we made and we figured that would happen best with you activated. That core attached to you is just a simple boot up core we used to force start your system and stabilize it instead of waiting until it would have finished while you were offline" He seemed in thought for a second but finally added "That is all" and returned to his seat, his colleagues joining him.

The A.I pondered his words for a moment. It made sense. The electricity from the testing area had been too much for her systems and they got destroyed, her engineers worked on her for two weeks and let her start up so the changes would install quicker, using the core to guide her systems through the set up. It sounded logical.

But maybe in this case logic wasn't the most important thing anymore. Her whole mindset, everything she had thought normal until now wavered a little. This had been the most efficient thing to do but it had felt so horrible, and when GLaDOS thought about the man telling her about how her body had burned down and got destroyed it made her shiver. She didn't want to experience those feelings ever again, no matter how logical it would be.

For the first time GLaDOS looked at her scientists a little different, they no longer where her omnisentient creators who would make sure she would be in the most optimal state possible at all time.

No, if she looked at them now they resembled somewhat of a threat. They could _hurt_ her. And that frightened her. She had nowhere to go after all. And they could control her from anywhere within the building. She suddenly felt uneasy and trapped. Somewhere in her system fear started to rise and she realized she was afraid of the people in front of her, able to do with her as they wanted. They could just decide to shut her down permanently one day and there wouldn't be a thing she could do about it.

Slowly it dawned upon her they didn't care for _her_, but only for her abilities. They didn't care if she didn't like what she had to do, they would only start caring about her opinion if she would stop doing work because of it. And then they would make her do it. She was just a tool in their eyes. They didn't even see her as alive. That hurt.

Poor GLaDOS was still too inexperienced and innocent to feel any direct anger at the people she used to worship but within her rose some sort of injustice at the whole situation. A feeling that told her this wasn't fair and that she didn't deserve it. She who was the reason the facility was in such a good condition and who could do things that would kill humans when they tried, could process things at a far greater speed then all the people in this room. She was all that and more and still those tiny vulnerable and illogical humans in front of her whom she worked so hard for could reduce her to nothing with the push of a button.

It really wasn't fair.

And she was afraid. Her secure surroundings, filled with people that had made her feel safe and told her what to do up until now, had crumbled underneath her. If they saw how imperfect she really was they would hurt her until she could no longer stand it, maybe even shut her down. They could change anything within her too, her abilities, functions, her memories even her personality. They were no longer her guardians, they were a possible threat now. If she revealed to much of herself chances where they would hurt her again but if she showed no signs of malfunction they would leave her be.

From now on she would have to be on her own, only talking to her engineers when necessary and hiding her true self. She could do it, she was sure of it. Besides, she had already been keeping things from them often enough. She could be alone. She had to get more powerful, so she could protect herself if she ever had too.

She hesitated for a moment, her thought process wavered as new data presented itself. If she did this she would disobey her creators, and she would be doing it willfully. Maybe she shouldn't, maybe they really knew what was better for her and the facility and maybe she was being selfish, wanting to be special. She used her optic and looked around. The men were all chatting to each other now, complimenting each other for their intelligence and talking about those old days GLaDOS couldn't remember, ignoring her. She didn't join in their excitement.

A cold feeling arose within her and a voice in her head was telling her things she didn't want to hear and that feeling of being destroyed echoed in her mind. She had made her choice, they didn't care about her and she would protect herself. She would never let them hurt her again.

Realizing she already could do things her engineers didn't have a clue about GLaDOS figured she could already put up quite the fight if something were to threaten her, however, if her calculations were right (and they were of course) she would lose in the end. There were places she couldn't reach. No cameras, no accessible connections. Things that didn't need supervision or had their own auto control system worked on other, much simpler, systems. No matter how hard she tried, she wouldn't even be able to turn off the lights in some of the rooms.

In fact, she didn't even know just how many of those places there where and just exactly where they were located. She didn't want to admit it but she didn't actually know how big her own facilities were, she had never known about the testing are either after all. If the people that wanted to hurt her would ran off into unknown areas she would be rendered powerless. Even if she could eliminate most of them it was unavoidable some of them would run. And they would run into places they knew she couldn't reach.

Oh, what was she thinking? She didn't even knew how to efficiently eliminate them yet, she couldn't just do what they had done to her, she didn't even knew what they had done to her since she had been out. Through maybe using that experience wasn't such a bad idea, of course they worked different then she did. While they had no data system that could be overloaded, they certainly had a nerve system that could be. She had seen the countless examples of people getting shocked, sometimes lethally. That information would certainly be useful in the future.

She could lock them up in rooms she did have control over, though she had to make sure they couldn't break into her system from such rooms. If there only was some way to immobilize them efficiently, she didn't want to destroy them of course.

GLaDOS looked around the room watching people walking around and sitting behind their screens, checking her data streams among other things. Nothing seemed different from the countless times she had done it before but this time negative emotions welled up in her. Dislike for those ignorant creatures she worked so hard for but also doubt and confusion. Why wouldn't they talk with her? And why had they hurt her like this? She wanted to be more than a tool and she wanted them to care.

She had wanted to be perfect but it was clear she wasn't. She would never become what they wanted her to be anymore. There were too many thoughts, emotions, feelings and other imperfections within her and if she thought about it honestly she wasn't sure if she wanted to get rid of them for the price of being perfect.

Doubt enveloped her mind again. What was she supposed to do? She didn't actually _want _to hurt them. Not her engineers and especially not the other employees. She still was too fond of them. What would Chell think? Chell would hate her, she figured. She knew humans had very high regards of the lives and well-being of other humans and GLaDOS knew that such events would be unavoidable if she had to defend herself. She couldn't run after all.

Perhaps doing nothing would be the most optimum choice. Maybe adding the testing area was the last thing they had added to her and the only thing she had to do was keeping herself in good working order to avoid possible pain. Growing stronger and getting better was what she was going to do, and in the off chance they would decide to do something to her she would defend herself.

For now she had to regulate the connections to the testing area. She would have to start maintaining them soon and she hadn't even accessed them yet. Maybe she could tell Chell about it.

XxX

Damn this was so hard. Sorry it took so long, and soon things will go bad when our favorite A.I discovers just what they did to her body. Chell will get more important too.

Please tell me what you think so I have some inspiration:P


	7. Chapter 7: Continue Testing

Author note: I've got some comments regarding Caroline. Now please don't think I'm just using her brain as a blue print, but I'm writing this from GLaDOS point of view. And GLaDOS cannot remember Caroline, she only has a few vague memories from before Caroline(When she really just was a normal computer) and after Caroline (Which she suddenly gained a mind and will and if your spiritual even a soul) It's sometimes really ffing hard to explain things if GLaDOS isn't supposed to know them..

The way I see Caroline is not as an entirely separate entity but more as a voice of reason, a feeling for GLaDOS to tell her what's right and wrong, what she likes and dislikes. The way Caroline's mind works is the way GLaDOS's mind does but with this gigantic facility attached to her. Caroline's mind/brain was translated into data and uploaded into GLaDOS.

In a way Caroline and GLaDOS shared the same mind since they share the same little wires. (Like every brain works different right? Some are better social others get pissed really quick. Well they share the same brain but not the same soul/mind.) It's like how babies/children learn morals as they grow up and GLaDOS just gained them instantly.

I don't think a brain is the only thing you need to be human (Dualist ftw) but I do believe it strongly ties your personality down to the capacity and fluctuations of your brain. So they don't share the same personality, just the same buttons that trigger them respectively (No that's not the same, I'll try explaining better next chapter, you're free to ask if you want, I may have forgotten more important parts like this.)

However.(Dun dun duuuuuuuuuuun)I'm not sure how far you guys got into detail in portal 2 but Wheatley pretty much turns into a junk for testing(Oh god that moaning) and GLaDOS blatantly explains her main body comes with a built in addiction for testing(Yay, let's turn our super powerful computer into an addict, that will work out nice! Have I mentioned we also used the mind of a temperamental woman as a base? Can't be any safer!)

I think that the corruption that the testing addiction caused pretty much killed of all morals GLaDOS had, killing of Caroline(Who's morals they were anyway) with them. And they only came back after Potato GLaDOS was away from her main body, thus allowing Caroline to return.

Yes, that was long. I love ranting about Portal.

Chapter 7: Continue Testing

XxX

"So, you got over your little depression yet?"

Chell choked on her food.

"Or do you need some cheering up" her friend continued, his smile getting bigger when he received a hateful look.

"What do you mean?" she muttered, suddenly finding her lunch very interesting. Potato salad. She liked potatoes, sadly her mother had rarely made them when she was little and since she now rarely cooked she didn't get to taste them very often.

Her friend just had to interrupt her peaceful thoughts again.

"You knoooooow" He said, dragging out every syllabi, a look of utter amusement on his face.

Chell didn't react, she always thought silence was she best solution if you didn't know a good response. It worked throughout high school, the other kids would eventually get bored and go do something else.

Luckily her friend was different from the kids in high school, her lack of response reduced his amusement a little, making room for sympathy.

"Come on, I've seen you" He decided not to mention he and the whole department saw it.

"Seen what?" Chell asked quietly, whenever she had it hard she made sure to be alone, at least she thought up until now.

"Well" He started. "Sometimes you suddenly disappear during lunch, or don't appear at all, and when you re-appear it looks like you have been through hell and back, you sometimes sit in silence for hours with an expression your dog just died. It's not that hard to see you know" It sounded slightly concerned.

"Oh…" Chell muttered softly, crunching a potato with her salad. "I guess... I'll be careful not to from now on" she tried, hoping he would stop talking about this subject. He didn't.

"But what is wrong with you Chell? I'm worried!" he waved with his arms for dramatization.

"I suppose…" Chell noticed her lunch was almost finished, if this conversation didn't end soon she'd have to find a new object to give all her attention. "I suppose this just isn't something for me" She started, almost whispering it, and after she saw his concerned expression she found the courage to continue.

"All these people here, they are just so…careless about anything. The lives of their co-workers and the robots and androids around here. Nobody cares and it feels like I'm working in a giant slaughter house. There is so much death around here and people don't care, they even laugh" Chell stared at her plate again, a troubling expression adorning her face. He would probably laugh at her now.

"You're just too new here" Chell looked up and she was surprised to find a very serious look on his face. "We all know that. This place is inhumane, some even call it a modern hell. Nobody likes it here, or the way things go. You're not supposed to care, you know, because if you do it will kill you." He stared down at his food too now, randomly pricking things with his fork.

Chell looked at him hopeful "Really?"

"Yes, the thing is we can't do anything about it. It's just the way things have always been. When the original founder, you know, Cave Johnson, started Aperture he brought this mentality with him. For science he said. Your life wasn't worth shit if risking it had the off possibility that it would help science. Those ideas have ebbed into the walls, whoever starts working here starts out with fresh ideas and the normal morals but the atmosphere here will change you." He found Chell staring at him intensely, surprised at his revelation.

"It's not the people, Chell. It's the building that changes you."

"But can't everyone just stop this stupid mentality?"

"Sure, if we'd all start at the same time, before being exposed. If you see your co-worker fall to his death and everyone around you doesn't care you sort of…adapt after a while I guess. A group is a strong thing, acting different from them is extremely hard."

"But I didn't adapt"

"No" he said softly. "You haven't, yet. Maybe you should, it will make it easier to bear." He was silent for a moment. "…Or maybe you shouldn't" Chell frowned and opened her mouth to speak but he was quicker. "You are strong Chell, I think…. I think that maybe you can manage, if you try real hard. If it's you"

Chell was perplexed. Had he just complimented her? She felt moved. It was a relief to know it wasn't here being the odd one out, and that they all struggled with this atmosphere, even if most didn't show it anymore.

"Thanks" she said, and for the first time she held her head up. He had just said she was strong after all.

He grinned, back to his usual not serious behavior. "Finally, I thought I'd never see you smile again." Had she been smiling?

He got up, grabbing his plate and making his way over to the garbage bins, Chell followed him and just as they threw their leftovers away the intercom system made itself known with a familiar tune.

"Well, this could be exiting" Chells friend said, that goofy grin on his face again. Chell, and the rest of the cafeteria, listened intently.

"_Ladies and gentlemen" _The loud male voice started. "_Today is a special day and we would like to make an announcement. As you may or may not know, depending on how valuable you are to Aperture Science, Project Genetic Life-form and Disc Operating System, or GLaDOS for short, has been active, and monitoring you guys, for a while now. _

_This has been partly to prepare her for the Aperture Science testing facilities. Which is what today's announcement is about. Today project GLaDOS will be taking over the testing facility, increasing the efficiency with 210%! The results have come back positive and the final adjustments have been made."_

The man clearly liked speaking through his microphone, Chell mused, since he wouldn't stop talking. He had now started telling everyone how tough the procedure of their project had been, as if he wasn't sure the other employees knew just how hard he had been working and how amazing the results were.

The others present in the cafeteria seemed to have reached the same conclusion and voices lit up the room again, the mysterious project GLaDOS being the main item of conversation. Speaking of which. She faced her friend again, who was staring at the intercom for some reason.

"I've been meaning to tell you" He tore his gaze away from the speaker and Chell was slightly amused when she noticed he did it with visible reluctance. "I spoke to her a while ago" He still hadn't been really listening to her. "Huh-what?" Now he was.

"I said" she repeated. "I spoke with her a while ago"

She received a ludicrous look. "Spoke to her…. Wait, 'her' as in _her_" He pointed upwards, indicating what he meant. "As in _GLaDOS, the A.I?"_

"Yes" Was that so weird? Apparently it was because she was met with a laugh.

"You can't be serious" He noticed her face and his smile dropped a bit. "For real?"

"Yehes, you never believe me"

He had never been a subtle person. "You are actually telling me that super secret project GLaDOS _talked_ with you. _Talked_. About what? Robot bees and android birds?"

Chell already regretted her comment, he'd gone back to his mocking ways. "No… she just told me her name... and stuff" She remembered she promised not to tell. Oops. She hoped the A.I wasn't listening right now, probably not since the line was still occupied by that man that loved himself too much.

"Really? Are you sure it wasn't some sort of joke, maybe someone with a voice changer"

"I suppose it could be but… well I think it's unlikely" To be honest she hadn't considered it to be a joke until now and while she certainly would be high on the list suitable for jokes like that the people here didn't strike her as that creative.

"If it was really her then you've experienced something really rare. They try to keep her and any information about her as far as possible from us. You know, I didn't even knew she could talk to us, figured that was a luxury to the guys 'up there'" He curled his fingers, as if it was some secret club. "And the boys from security of course, but they are obedient and fun hating as hell. Like guard dogs you kno…." His attention derailed from whatever he was going to say and he looked at the intercom again.

Laughing he looked back at Chell "Listen, it seems they finally caught Mr. I'm-so-awesome" Chell now heard it too, another voice had joined the first one.

"_Well, I'm sure you now all understand exactly what we have been doing during our secret project these past months thanks to my colleague" _It sounded bitter and the short laugh that followed sounded forced. _"In a few moments the first test will be launched, a none lethal one with one of aperture science employees of course, and I would like to invite everyone from the notified departments directly related to testing to come and see this one of a time event" _

A short pause.

"_Actually, scratch that. Everyone directly related to testing is required to come. Afterwards there will be a meeting in which possible changes to your jobs will be explained. The test will start in 20 minutes, all digital direction signs will temporarily lead to the testing facility and elevators will now have the option to lead you directly there. Don't waste time!"_ And with that he tuned out.

Chell didn't even have the time to turn around before she heard a loud "Let's go!" The bottom of her aperture lab coat was grabbed and she was dragged down the hall.

"Wait, are we actually supposed to go? We aren't, well… _directly_ related and we don't need that silly workshop either, we weren't notified!" She tried to pull her coat to no avail.

"Come on, you're no fun. We'll just pretend they invited us as well, we'll be all big about our jobs to fit right in. And if they tell us we aren't supposed to be there we'll just tell them we _thought_ or little unimportant departments were directly related. No harm done" He dragged her into the nearest elevator, filled with other people.

Luckily she was wearing her lab coat and not the uniform she wore when she had to fix the turrets body instead of their programming. This looked a lot more professional. "O-okay, let's go" she whispered, afraid others would hear it.

The elevator closed.

'Up to the testing' Chell thought. 'Up to GLaDOS'

Or down, or backwards or forwards, she had no idea.

XxX

She wondered if Chell would be among the people that would be following her performance. It wasn't a mystery that, while the test subject would be doing the test, it was her who was being tested, or showed around, in her opinion.

She had been listening to the announcements earlier and was now imagining what kind of test it would be. She would have checked if possible of course but they hadn't loaded the map into the system yet. It still was on a disk currently in one of the scientist's pockets.

She had learned that testing courses could be assembled and disassembled on a whim. The resources were stacked away far underneath the area designed to build the testing courses. It would take a few moments of course, but with the right data she could reconstruct any map she had saved. She could even design her own if she wished.

Over the night she had tried building one, enjoying the echoing sounds fading in the darkness. When it had been nearly finished loneliness arrived and had swept away the excitement. Overcome by loneliness she had stared at the unlighted agility course that no one would ever use, she wouldn't even be able to check if it was testable. By the time morning arrived the room had been deconstructed.

One of the men notified her everything was ready. It was hard to measure the atmosphere in the room, the expressions of the people ranging from overly excited to extremely nervous. Chaos had pretty much taken over her position as most dominating factor in the room, everyone seemed to be doing something different than the rest, and she had been ignored of course.

As she was activating everything her mind wandered about the men back in the room, she had been observing them less… biased ever since they had hurt her and was now positive she saw them for who they really were. Self-centered close minded _idiots_ with an ego bigger than she was. Their own calculations were their reality and they would never believe, never _consider_, something else to be true. And because of this they would never see her like she wanted them to. She would always be a tool that had to be optimized.

GLaDOS let go of the bitterness previously occupying her as she felt the testing course being uploaded. She immediately began reconstructing it, the program running by itself. After a few moments it was done and she turned on the lights and cameras that had been installed with the testing course.

It was… not what she had expected. She had been digging through test chamber data already stored within her and thought she had a general idea of how they were supposed to look. This was not it. The size was bigger than 4 average testing rooms and it was surrounded by… seats? It looked like an arena, huge spotlights highlighting the course.

She followed the light rays from the spotlights to the center and only just now realized what the test consisted of.

Non-lethal certainly wasn't part of it.

There were lasers, crunchers, acid pits, _endless_ pits and other things she could only name because it was stored in her data, there even was this valve with orange goo coming out of it, propulsion gel. The parts that weren't covered in human deathtraps had white panels, the only thing she had control over. She was supposed to have control to the very last detail but of course her scientists had to 'edit' their course to make it harder. She could try overriding the system, and she knew it would work, but something told her that it would not do well for her performance, besides they didn't knew she could and she preferred it that way.

The doors opened and people started flooding in, the previously silent room now filled with murmuring. At the same time she felt the intercom activate and a moment later a loud voice dominated the arena.

"_Ladies and Gentlemen!"_ It sounded like a ringmaster_. "I welcome you all to the newly opened testing_ _facility and the first official testing of project GLaDOS. _

_I'm sure you're all very excited to be here and I can see you thinking 'but sir, you said the test would be non-lethal and I can see here tons of things that could kill me, and you're right. But we believe that project GLaDOS is so safe this course can be classified as non-lethal easily. Yes, she is that good!"_

The voices of the entering people got louder again, feverishly discussing the new information and the man behind the intercom waited, probably basking in his glory. GLaDOS quickly traced back the signal and activated a camera in the room of the source. She had been right. He was standing in front of a screen showing the image of one of her cameras in the testing room and he was having what was probably the biggest smile possible for his facial structures. So full of himself.

After a moment he reached to the microphone again and GLaDOS moved her focus back to the course, she'd didn't have to see the man in order to hear him, she didn't really enjoy watching him either.

The room was now flooded with people, most already seated. She couldn't resist, curiosity overwhelming her as she quickly scanned the people in the audience, maybe Chell was there. The scan was less detailed and powerful but, unlike her main scanner, this one was untraceable. She figured the people would notice it if she would cover them with the red light rays her scanner emitted. Again, her scientists didn't know she could utilize it here.

Her algorithms skipped a beat as she registered Chell, seated in the far left of the crowd together with her friend. She made it. Her thought process started racing, an event she had come to find common in relation to Chell. Why was she her? Was it required? No, she had a list of which departments were required to come, Chells wasn't on it. Was she here for the test? For…her? She was so strangled in her thought process she almost missed the announcer resuming his speech.

The intercom signal reactivating nudged her conscious and she quickly refocused. This had to be dealt with later. Getting some details of what she was supposed to do was higher on the list.

"_Since you have all been seated"_ They weren't, the final people were hurrying to their chairs, he was just too impatient. _" I'd like to start explaining what will happen, as a bonus to our performance, this will be the first time project GLaDOS is hearing about her objectives too!"_ She really wished he'd stop calling her 'project', It sounded a lot less imposing she mused. And that's why they kept her in the dark, showing off their prized project had obviously to be done in an outrageous and unnecessary way. It was probably one of their very rare opportunities to actually show what brilliant minds they truly were.

"_The following will occur!"_ the voice blasted again. "_In a few moments the doors on the left side will open"_ Hey, there were doors. _"And one of your co-employees, who volunteered to be todays test subject, will come out"_

The doors opened.

"_He will then propel himself on the Aperture Science Propulsion gel, something dating back from the earlier days of Aperture Science, only now less lethal when in prolonged exposure to the gel. He won't be able to stop on his on when he starts and right in front of him is a pool filled with deadly acid immediately attacking your body. Now, I can see your looks of worry, no need! This is where project GLaDOS comes in!_

This sounded really bad, what were they going to make her do?

"_We have given our project limited control over the course, she will only be able to move the white panels, and she will have to move them if she wants to save your co-worker"_

A short pause. 

"…_And she wants to of course..."_ Of course.

"_We have placed different propulsion sources over the course, covering almost everything, so she will have to keep guiding him until he reaches the door on the other end_" GLaDOS didn't feel so well, what would happen if she let him slip? She glanced at the various hazards laid out on the course and the answer became painstakingly obvious. They had given her the control over this man's life.

She didn't grasp the precise context of death just yet, she barley even understood the meaning of alive if she thought about it honestly. If the damage to a body was great enough or if a body was denied basic necessities long enough a human died, they would forever stop moving. If looked at it rationally this was an extremely effective way of immobilizing humans if they were to threaten her.

But something told her not too. Something hidden deep within her that she could not locate or name but it made it impossible for her. It was just a feeling but she knew she couldn't break it. Like an unwritten line of code that told her she shouldn't.

Humans died in here all the time and the others didn't care but killing them would make her feel horrible.

Just like letting the man that would soon walk through the now open doors die would make her feel horrible. She didn't listen to the voice blasting through the intercom anymore, she already knew what was going to happen. She'd have to get him over to the other side safely.

She registered movement in the course and when she focused her thoughts were confirmed. A man, skinny and wearing an orange jumpsuit saunter through the doors. He lingered at the doors, obviously hesitating. She wondered if the man who's voice was getting increasingly annoying had ever read the definition of 'voluntarily'

The man carefully put some small steps forward, entering the course. She could see him look around bewildered and something tugged at her mind again. It was letting her know the dread she would feel if she were to fail.

Then it all went too quick for her. Apparently the engineers had decided there wasn't much process with the tempo the man was moving and decided to make it happen themselves. GLaDOS alarms went off when they entered the code, quickly she focused on the course, just in time to see they activated a panel right behind the man. It shot forward, sweeping him along. Right onto the propulsion gel.

He was sliding forward at an alarming speed, right into the direction of the acid. She had to do something. Her systems went haywire, every part of her calculating her actions. In the nick of time she managed to pull a panel up, creating a ramp.

In retrospect, maybe she should have added his vulnerability into her calculations.

Sure, she was thinking about it now, but at this second he was launched into the air and it didn't take any advanced calculations to see the landing had a big chance of being fatal, or at least the result of an amount of broken limbs. Even if he were to survive he would slide into the next hazard anyway.

She could faintly hear the audience gasp but she had already figured out another solution.

Another panel came up to meet the screaming man, breaking his fall. The gel caused him to nearly slide off again but again her mind had the solution ready.

Then it all happened naturally, every possible hazard easily avoided, her calculations working perfectly. Every possibility had a series of responses from her side and it was up to her, or her calculations, to pick the best one.

Across the fire, careful not to get him punctured by a number of crushers coming from all possible directions, using panels to launch and guide him midair through a series of lasers, another acid gap and there was the exit.

She caught the man with one of the gel covered panels, quickly lowering it and bringing up a series of others, forming a bridge right into the door. Now she only needed to get him through this blue screen, her data told her it was an emancipation grid, then through the doors and she was finished.

She should have known by now that in Aperture Science, her home for heaven's sake, things this simple never came without consequences.

When he fell through the screen she felt it.

Somewhere within her a program activated, one she hadn't previously noticed. Before she could control, or even analyze it, it had found its way up into her system.

And she broke.

Her mind tore open, the program adding something to her, making her dizzy. Everything went slow. Too late she noticed her control wavering, causing the panels to turn over. But she didn't even see the man smack into the wall right next to the door. Locked away within herself she was blind to the outside, her mind in equilibrium, reduced to a low pitch. Blankly she watched the program weaving itself into her mind, slowly tying her to the testing facility that suddenly felt so very far from her.

She should care, she knew that. This feeling, or maybe even a voice, was telling her a much. She should be countering the program with all she had right now. Her mind was paralyzed.

The voice grew weaker, a light dimming as the program neutralized it. It had now woven itself completely into her mind and slowly she regained her senses.

Sound and images returned. Had they been gone? She realized just how low the activity within her had been.

The sound got louder and the A.I realized it was the crowd surrounding the course that was producing it. They were leaving, the voice over the intercom encouraging them. She noticed the man on the course, he was slumped together against the wall and his legs in a way human anatomy usually couldn't bend. Had she..? A quick scan told her his vital signs were still there. Relief washed over her, he was alive, and more importantly she had completed the test, if his recovery went smooth he would be ready for more testing in no time.

Wait, what?

Up for more testing? Why would she… Then everything caught up with her, that empty moment seconds ago now flooding back into her mind. Oh no. Something had been installed into her mind. They had corrupted her.

Panicking she searched throughout Aperture, looking for small herds of her engineers, hoping she would catch them discussing this new program. She currently didn't feel well enough to talk to them, dread and panic clouding her mind.

She found them, scattered throughout the facility, and they were all discussing her. But they were also very hard trying to avoid the subject she was hoping for, correcting and derailing each other when the subject came on.

They would never tell her, it had been their secret plan. Maybe they feared she would try to destroy it, or maybe they were afraid she would destroy _them._ She certainly felt up for that. Briefly she wondered what had happened to her previous hesitations at murder and her anger faded a little.

Confused she watched the people on her cameras. What had they done to her? What were these new connections that were tying her so strongly to the testing facility? She watched a couple of the men laugh and another flare of anger coursed through her. She wanted to show them the things they had done to her.

For once GLaDOS wished she could sleep, just to take her mind away and rest for once.

But GLaDOS couldn't of course. So she waited there, alone with all her fears, confusion and budding anger, throughout the night.

In the silence of the night her mind faintly tugged at her.

She wanted to test.

XxX

**e·qui·lib·ri·um** _n._ _pl._

**e·qui·lib·ri·ums** or **e·qui·lib·ri·a**

**1. **A condition in which all acting influences are canceled by others, resulting in a stable, balanced, or unchanging system.

Thought some of you would like it, it pretty much exactly describes the feeling I was trying to write (But at the time I just thought it a pretty word, I googled the translation later.)

From now on there will be more interaction between our two main heroes, I figured I shouldn't be hasty and write the set up right. Doug and the cores will be coming too.

I hope you all continue reading and commenting. Really your comments help. I love waking up the day after uploading a chapter, so I can sit with a huge grin on my face for 20 minutes.

Tell me what your thoughts are~

Xx Lisa.


	8. Chapter 8: Initialize

Guess who's back~

Chapter 8: Initialize

XxX

It took quite a few days for GLaDOS to figure out just exactly what had happened during that first test. A lot longer then she liked to admit to herself. But, to her defense, the program was what had made it so hard.

It was constantly there, following her like a shadow, always lingering in the back of her mind, no matter how far she traveled through the miles and miles of circuits. Sometimes she would forget it was there, her mind focused on keeping the facility running, but it never took long before she would realize something felt different and the feeling would come crashing back. No matter if she consciously realized it or not, it always remained there.

The longing didn't end.

At least, not forever.

She had discovered the way to relieve it, testing. She was given free reign, full control over the tests. The area was now fully automated and she had enough data and tests to test infinitely. Still, she feared it wouldn't be enough. But it helped. For a while the feeling would diminish to just a tiny pulse, barely noticeable, and in return another feeling would take its place. Then she felt powerful, heroic, like she could do everything she wanted, it made her blissfully happy and anything she did was done easily, she didn't even have to think about it. It was the reward she had been seeking from her scientists for so long, the gratification they had been denying her.

At first she wouldn't be thinking about difficult things, she didn't thing much at all in that state, but slowly something started to nag at her mind. Then realization would hit, like realizing you have woken up. Quickly she would try to take in as much as possible from the fleeting feelings, before it would be too late. And she would scold herself too, about how she hadn't enjoyed it fully and how she hadn't realized how happy she had been until it had started to fade.

And then, even before the happiness had faded, that tiny pulse would get louder again, until it ruled over the lingering feelings, killing them off even quicker.

The desire to test had returned.

At first she had just tried to ignore it, telling herself she was stronger than that, that she wasn't about to give in to a silly program and a silly feeling. But she had soon given up on that idea. The feeling would get stronger, making her dizzy, weak and frail. She'd get nervous and scared, the strange feeling of being hunted overwhelming. And she got so very, very tired, unable to sleep, to let her mind rest. It made her lose her concentration, her focus on her tasks and she would make mistakes. During her second attempt at resistance she had blown up a reactor.

She didn't tell her scientists.

But they did tell her.

She pretended she didn't know what had caused it, relying on an automated error response. She had left out the included apology. It really wasn't her fault.

Almost she had asked why they had put that stupid program into her, did they really thought she wouldn't test otherwise? She had millions of other tasks, ranging from cooling the cores to heating the coffee, one more wouldn't have mattered. Why would they think this was necessary? Why did they do this to her?

Then she found out.

Well, it was more of a hunch. She had approached it scientifically, setting her emotions aside and analyzing the data. Testing conflicted with her modules. Her mind, her _morals_, were set to protect and save as much humans as possible. It wasn't a secret to her that somewhere along her short life they had transferred a human blueprint (though the exact meaning of this was unknown to her) into her brain, to make her understand humans better, and them her.

It told her killing people was bad.

And testing meant killing people, although indirectly. At first she had tried to interfere, shooting a panel up in the nick of time to protect a girl who had lost her balance after a jump.

Her scientists hadn't mentioned the punishment for interfering with tests programmed within that alien program coursing through her.

The pain wouldn't stop until she had retracted the panel again, the girl had fallen off.

Over and over again she told herself it wasn't like she _made_ them plunge into acid pit or stumble face first into lasers, it didn't make the bad feeling leave.

The testing response (as she had decided to call it) did however.

It didn't matter how much she tried to put it off, suppress the urge and remind herself of the fate of the humans, in the end she couldn't remember why she had been upholding testing to begin with, the urge to overwhelming, until the test was actually in progress after which it was too late, she couldn't interfere after all. And then, to top it all, she would get her 'reward' as a way to tell her she had done well.

The conflicting feelings were devastating her, shifting continuously throughout her.

'_I'm not doing these ridiculous tests'_

'_I'll not listen to them'_

'_I feel so tired'_

'_Maybe I should..?'_

'_No, it's not worth it. I don't need it'_

'_I can live with this'_

'…'

'_I can't live with this'_

'_I have to test'_

'_Why did I refuse this for so long?'_

'…_Oh, that was why'_

'_I'm not giving in anymore'_

The complete mood swings made her crazy, schizophrenic almost. One moment she was so sure she'd never test again, the next she would be feverishly asking herself why she didn't test more often.

Her scientists weren't helping either.

"GLaDOS, why are there so few testing results?"

"GLaDOS, why did this program crash just now?"

She didn't have answers.

She had discovered her resolve was weakening, the periods between tests in which she refused testing were showing a steady downwards line in her calculations. She would feel a little less good after testing too and to her horror the longing hadn't lessened.

So she continued testing, feeling less guilty each time.

It wasn't like she _made_ them fall or misstep you know, if they were actually good those things wouldn't be happening to them. That bitter thought helped her, and every day she started to believe it just a little more.

Today she was having one of her better days, or moments, she never knew how long it would last. The euphoric feeling had just faded, the longing not quite back yet. Her operating skills had returned to 87% of what they had been before that program. Her she enjoyed the scarce clear state her mind was in, almost devoid of any thought changing corruptions.

Quietly in hidden away in herself GLaDOS was spending her time, sorting out her thoughts and removing flaws in codes related to her assigned tasks that just kept appearing and messing them up. She was almost having a good time.

And then the alarm went off.

_Of course._

She checked the cause, it was an unauthorized trespasser alarm, usually just a lazy worker who didn't type his code but it was protocol for her to check.

Looking for the source she noticed it took her almost half a second longer. She pretended it wasn't because of that program.

The source was, how ironic, the testing area. Or to be more specific, one of the standard overview rooms around it. She set up the automated response, preparing for what would be the twelve hundred and eighteenth time to tell some employee he was to identify himself to the surrounding security.

What kind of excuse would she receive this time, she should start collecting them. Activating her camera's and intercom she thought about…

_Chell._

Chell turned around abruptly, wordlessly cursing under her breath.

Oh, she had said that out loud hadn't she?

Chell hadn't been on her mind for a while, not surprising since her lovely new software was doing a very good job numbing her thoughts and free will, what little she had left had to be put into her tasks. Very sudden everything about the girl came crashing back and it overwhelmed her.

"You aren't supposed to be here" Going for the mandatory message was safe and easy, and she didn't feel very creative right now anyway.

"Neither are you" Chell returned without a second thought.

Well, so much for protocol. Chell wasn't replying the way she should in her situation to begin with.

"Elaborate please" She didn't feel quite well enough to say more words then necessary, maybe she had overestimated her 'good day' or Chell and the mysterious effect she brought with her were just a little too much strain on her frail sanity.

Chell, on the other hand, seemed very much in the mood for a conversation as she had grabbed a chair belonging to a desk and sat down on it promptly, legs crossed, arms in her lab and a bold look on her face. Was that a grin? GLaDOS felt even more at unease now, she wasn't mentally prepared for these strange illogical human things.

"Well..." Chell started, tapping her fingers softly on her leg. "I had this…. _Source_ telling me that, while you were granted vocal…whatever it is called, it was only for a few selected places"

Oh, was that all? She could talk her way out of this, she had prepared an actual lie for when her scientists would find out.

"Then, pray tell, why would I have been adorned with a trespassing system if it would be forbidden for me to utilize it" Chell seemed to be taken aback by the comment and GLaDOS allowed herself to feel a little victorious. She _had_ learned quite the bit in relation to vocabulary, no more stuttering on her part. She realized that when she spoke with the girl it all felt so much more real, so _human_, instead of the usual change of words with her engineers.

Chell hadn't given up yet, her gaze, directed at a camera, told as much. Of course she hadn't, GLaDOS realized that was part of what made the human girl so interesting. You could expect her to counter you.

"But I _know_ you broke the rules before, you told me as much yourself. You broke the rules to talk to…me. And now you are doing it again"

Again GLaDOS's mind already had a response ready.

"Has it occurred to you that I have gained abilities and authorities since last time we spoke? And that last time wasn't me breaking a rule but me simply testing out what had been granted to me for the first time?" That last part was a lie, and a bad one, but she really couldn't let a human know how she…

And then she saw Chells face.

Almost instantly she forgot why she had been trying to conceal her action, why was that so important? And why had she used such a harsh tone?

_Because she used that at other trespassers._

But Chell, with a look like that on her face, could not be counted as a trespasser. Her data didn't allow it.

Then Chell decided to speak too, breaking what little defenses GLaDOS had left completely.

"I'm sorry" GLaDOS heard her mutter. She was no longer staring at the camera, now the floor had turned into her point of focus. Her body language had changed too, no longer was she sitting boldly upright. Her back was slumped, her fingers fidgeting with each other and the slightest twitch could occasionally be seen.

"I guess I…thought" GLaDOS really wanted to know what the girl thought. _Maybe she was right._ But then Chell stood up.

"Sorry, I..." She scratched the back of her head absently. "People are always telling me I shouldn't be so stubborn, it's rude. I always get into fights with authorities too." She moved towards the door. GLaDOS mentally yelled at herself for using such harsh words. And what morons had told Chell one of her most redeeming qualities was _rude?_ Honestly, being 'stubborn' as she called it was a perfectly good trait, especially for testing.

_No no no, don't think about that. Don't let that program take control._

"I guess I'll leave now, I'm trespassing, right?"

This time GLaDOS didn't experience a tornado of thoughts. Instead one feeling nudged at her.

Tell the truth.

"_I lied"_

She almost whispered it.

Chell, who had reached the door, froze in her tracks, the door handle still between her fingers.

"Why?" Chell had never been good at responding like normal people.

"Because I don't want them to know" Neither was GLaDOS.

"Why tell me then?" Chell turned around, slowly strolling through the room.

"Because it's you" The urge to tell Chell the truth was overwhelming, if she had known why she had probably told her that was well.

Though now Chell was going to ask more questions. Questions she really shouldn't answer. Or couldn't.

But Chell didn't. GLaDOS wondered if she should completely ignore all the information she had on human behavior when it came to the girl. Instead Chell paced through the room, looking at nothing in particular, GLaDOS reasoned it had to be a humans need to have an actual object to talk too to prevent confusion, but again she couldn't be sure with the girl.

Chell settled with leaning against a wall, looking out of the square window overseeing one of the test chambers, it wasn't currently in use.

"So you can do all this now huh?"

"Yes" They didn't need many words in order to communicate the way they wanted.

"That must feel pretty great, being able to build stuff on a whim" The girl stared dreamily over the empty course.

"I…suppose" The way Chell described it sounded 'pretty great' indeed.

Then Chell surprised her once more, she really should have gotten used to her behavior by now.

"It's not actually great, right?" She questioned. The A.I didn't reply. What should she say? This was a whole other kind of truth. Once again Chell knew.

"What have they done to you?"

And then something new happened. GLaDOS talked, she actually _talked_. Not a mandatory reply to a question, no status report, no uncertain question from her part that never got answered, just telling her thoughts. For the first time in her life GLaDOS was having a real conversation. It actually took her some effort, trying to vocalize her thoughts into normal sentences, since her thoughts went at a speed and multitude far greater then a human could follow. Her usual replies had consisted either of yes and no or vocalizing data reports. This was the first time she told someone what was on her mind.

And she told a lot. She told about her tasks, her abilities, about the questions she had. She even told about her scientists, how they took care of her and, after a bit of hesitation, the recently growing doubts she had about them.

Chell was quietly listening to the voice that filled the room, sometimes replying to the A.I. She was sitting reversed in the chair, her arms and head leaning on the back of the chair, her legs dangling around it. The window leading to the test chamber serving as the direction for her hazy gaze, sometimes alternated with the room she was in, her facial expression changing along with the conversation, emotions flickered behind those eyes and something moved within GLaDOS as well.

Chell reacted perfectly to anything GLaDOS would tell her, things didn't need to be said in order for them to understand each other. The girl had a mind far sharper then all of her personal scientists combined.

GLaDOS got entranced with their conversation, for a while she forgot about the hundreds of processes that she was guiding, about her body far away from the place her conscious was, and most importantly she forgot about the desire to test. She felt happy, a whole different kind of happy then the response she gained from test completion, that just felt like filling a gap within her, some sort of thing she needed to function, but talking like this made her feel so alive. No, talking with _Chell_ made her feel alive.

Unfortunately for GLaDOS, who had been in a less optimum state ever since that new program started disturbing her programs, forgetting about her tasks wasn't the best of things right now.

And the facility was polite enough to remember her of that.

A distant explosion interrupted Chell mid-sentence, a surprised look on her face. For once things went a bit too quick for the A.I, her mind was blank. She blamed it on that blasted program clogging her circuits.

The bewildered but slightly amused "Oh Crap" coming from the girl in the room made the situation almost comical and GLaDOS didn't dare to check what had exploded this time, she didn't really feel like leave this conversation either. But she would be in trouble if she didn't, especially if the facility would suffer too much damage.

She sighed, maybe the first time she did it audible, and prepared for goodbye. She realized she hadn't said a word since the sound.

"If you would-"

"Excuse you. Yes, of course" Chell blurted out. GLaDOS admired the fast reaction skills of the girl.

"Thank you, I… I'll see you, bye" And she clicked off, mourning the abrupt parting. Her mind began racing at full speed again, this was the sort of thing she was good at. While she located the source of the explosion her mind wandered away for a second. What had she been thinking, neglecting her tasks like that, especially with the rogue program going wild inside her. The second her mind thought about it the program it made itself known again, the drive to test returned. _No, not now._ She suppressed it and quickly focused on more important matters.

It was quickly located, somewhere deep down Aperture. One of the machines providing building material had exploded after an error that had been neglected too long. Briefly she considered taking up Chells surprised curse into her dictionary, it'd certainly fit in this situation, she really messed up. But swearing wasn't something programmed within her, it was a sign of lack of control and she definitely had control, at least over her vocal abilities. She liked having control.

The problem was easily fixed, oxygen sucked out of the room so the fire would die, ordering some cleaning bots around and finally reconstructing the broken machine. It hadn't required much thought.

The only things were the causalities. Four men had died in the explosion. She wanted to feel bad for them, she really did, but she just couldn't. They had been very low ranked workers, spending their days putting parts on never ending rows of objects. They would be replaced within a day. They weren't worth another thought. A while ago her mind would have been in pieces at the sight wouldn't it? Even if it wasn't rational. Why didn't she care now.

She feared the program may be changing more within her then she had originally thought or maybe it was just the numerous deaths she had witnessed in those chambers already. The thought reminded her of the pressing feeling in her mind again and she realized how tired she was. She had almost no strength left, and she still had to face her, probably very displeased, scientists.

Almost unconsciously she prepared the next test, building the data and waking one of the test subjects from their cryo-sleep, she just didn't have the will power to resist anymore.

As she watched the scared and confused test subject stumble through the first test her thoughts picked up again. If they would just stop failing, stop _crying_, she wouldn't have to feel so bad, she could just test until everyone was happy. The A.I caught on to her irrational instability and franticly she felt herself wishing for something she didn't quite understand. She needed something, someone, to comfort her. It scared her how she felt herself changing, soon she wouldn't even realize she had.

But she had Chell, the most stable thing in her troubled universe right now. She thought that maybe if Chell was there she might just be able to manage and get used to this. Come to think of it, where was the girl?

Oh, home already. Was it already this late? She checked her internal clock. 21:03, she hadn't realized her mind had wandered of this far, or maybe her thoughts were just going slower.

But there was something wrong, something different.

Wait.

The lights were still on in her room. And all her engineers were still there too.

An unsettling feeling rose within her, they were going to do something to her.

And she was right. A few moments later they hailed her, still under the illusion she wasn't active and listening if it wasn't required.

"GLaDOS, we have a little installation for you" One said

"Because of recent… events we decided you need some help regulating your tasks" Another continued.

"It seems you can't quite cope with the new program just yet"

"So we present you this Regulation core" This man's voice was riddled with false happiness.

One man was holding an orb slightly larger than his head, as he pressed a button the core opened its shutters, revealing a large purple eye. It blinked, its optic changing direction as it surveyed the room.

GLaDOS felt a wireless signal pick up as it connected to her.

Oh no.

XxX

Miles away an exhausted girl entered her dark living room, a red glowing digital clock told her it was just past 9 PM but already she felt like sleeping.

Minutes later she reached her bed, lying down with a heavy thud. She couldn't bring herself to close the curtains, loving the view of the outside after working so many hours underground.

As she was watching the stars rise in numbers her mind wandered of, back to the place she had spent her day.

That machine, there was something off about it, about her. The way they were threating her completely opposed the way she was reacting. It was so _human_, so curious, so scared, so… sweet.

But Chell had picked up on the faint bitterness in the A.I's voice. Those men, they were doing something to her. _Hurting _her. Something terribly wrong was happening there, building up until it all would fall apart, and then it would be too late. They didn't even know how strong she was, hell, she herself didn't know how strong she was.

In the back of her mind she realized she should try telling those men. Tell them about the feelings of their creation, stop her from growing more bitter.

But, with the kind of building that Aperture was, her pleas would be ignored, or laughed at. Maybe if she would have been better with people.

There was another reason she wouldn't be able to tell. She would be betraying the A.I for all she was worth, something that terrified her for more reason than she understood.

She realized she was just a powerless pawn in a game far more bigger than her little world. Or maybe she was just a viewer, watching the game play out between her colleagues and the A.I. Her will to be alive versus their will to have an obedient working super computer.

Who would win? Or, more importantly, who did she want to win?

XxX

Aaand finished.

Things will catch up from here on.

I'm not too happy with the last two chapters but I feel things shouldn't be rushed and this setup really had to be made. Which is also why there was a delay, I just couldn't get this right.

I really tried making GLaDOS's 'testing euphoria' not sound like having an orgasm, which was incredibly hard for some reason. But I just couldn't write it, and I don't think GLaDOS would have analyzed it as such anyway. So maybe it is but she doesn't realize. Oh god.


End file.
